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Reminiscences 

OF 

Abraham  Lincoln 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


(0  (ZL^Ax^^  'S^^-y^^L^ 


REMINISCENCES 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


cy^/Ta^^^^^^''^ 


REMINISCENCES 


OF 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


BY 


DISTINGUISHED   MEN   OF   HIS  TIME 


COLLECTED    AND    EDITED    BY 

ALLEN    THORNDIKE    RICE 

EDITOR   OF   THE   NORTH    AMERICAN    REVIEW 


NEW    YORK 

NORTH   AMERICAN   PUBLISHING   COMPANY 

30   Lafayette   Place 

1886 


Copyright,  18S5, 
By  ALLEN  THORNDIKE  RICE. 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Co., 
Nos.  10  to  20  Astor  Place,  New  York. 


CONTENTS. 


I. 

GENERAL   ULYSSES   S.  GRANT. 

PAGES 

Too  much  Tail— The  Dutch  Gap  Canal— I  will  make  a 

Fizzle,  anyhow i~4 

II. 
HON.   ELIHU  B.  WASHBURNE, 

EX-MINISTER    TO    FRANCE. 

Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln— In  the  Black  Hawk 
War  (1837) — His  First  Political  Success — Early 
Contemporaries — Popularity  as  a  Story- Teller — 
Brilliancy  as  a  Stump-Speaker — A  Strong  Partisan 
of  Clay — Personal  Appearance  of  Old  Abe — At  the 
Presidential  Inauguration  Ball— On  the  Missouri 
Compromise  (1854) — Lincoln  Defeated  for  the  Sen- 
ate (1858)— President  of  the  United  States  (1861)— 
Gloomy  Misgivings  on  the  Situation — Conspiracy 
to  Assassinate  the  President-elect  —  Precautions 
against  Assassination — "How  are  you,  Lincoln?" 
Mr.  Blaine's  Error — Would  not  Decline  a  Second 
Term  (1863)— The  Fall  of  Richmond—"  Mr.  Lin- 
coln has  been  Assassinated  " 5~45 


VI  *  CONTENTS. 

III. 
HON.  GEORGE   W.    JULIAN, 

KX-MEMBER   OF    CONGRESS. 

PAGES 

The  Famous  Rail-Splitter — The  Tremendous  Rush  for 
Office — Anger  against  McClellan — An  Inveterate 
Story-Teller — Why  John  C.  Fremont  was  not  Ap- 
pointed— Relations  with  Secretary  Stanton — A 
Characteristic  Anecdote — Unpopular  with  People 
and  Congress  in  1863 — How  Music  Affected  Lin- 
coln—His Great  Respect  for  Horace  Greeley — A 
Man  of  no  Resentments — Opposed  to  the  Proclama- 
tion of  Emancipation — Issued  the  Proclamation  Re- 
luctantly— The  Demand  for  the  Proclamation  Irre- 
sistible— Father  Abraham  his  Proper  Title 47-65 

IV. 
HON.  R.   E.   FENTON, 

EX-GOVERNOR    OF    NEW    YORK. 

Dissatisfaction  of  Thurlow  Weed — Not  a  Successful  Im- 
promptu Speaker — Did  not  know  where  Sherman 
would  come  out — "  The  Governor  has  a  Pretty 
Good  Case  " — "  On  to  Richmond  " — Providence 
and  General  McClellan — A  Grasp  on  Truth  and 
Justice 67-75 

V. 

HON.  J.   P.  USHER, 

EX-SECRETARY    OF    THE    INTERIOR. 

Lincoln  believed  in  Protection — A  Distinction  and  a 
Difference — Douglas  Faithful  to  the  Union — De- 
serving Davis — The  Tribune  Assails  Lincoln — The 
Union  before  Everything — Horace  Greeley's  Advice 
— Overlooking  the  Deity — Not  to  be  Bullied  by 
Congress — Cabinet  Differences — He  Never  did  De- 
spair of  the  Union — His  Faith  in  Grant 77-100 


CONTENTS.  VII 

VI. 
HON.  GEORGE    S.    BOUTWELL, 

EX-SECRETARV    OF    THE    TREASURY. 

PAGES 

Lincoln,  next  to  Washington,  the  Greatest  American — 
An  Early  Career  of  Vicissitudes — He  owed  Little 
of  his  Success  to  Education — Interpreting  the  Will 
of  the  People  by  Intuition— Letter  to  Mrs.  Bixby,  of 
Boston — Ideas  on  Race  Amalgamation — Campaign 
against  Douglas — Logical  Argument  against  Slavery 
— Not  an  Agitator — Hostility  to  Slavery  in  1831  — 
Democrats  or  Abolitionists — Effect  of  Public  Opin- 
ion— Emancipation,  the  Last  Card — The  Proclama- 
tion to  Follow  a  Victory — The  Unyielding  Secretary 
Stanton — Why  Meade  was  Appointed  to  Succeed 
Hooker — Capital  the  Offspring  of  Labor — A  Com- 
petitor for  Fame  with  the  Greatest  Orators — The 
Oration  at  Gettysburg — Lincoln  a  Staunch  Partisan 
— None  but  Partisans  should  Attain  Places — A 
Great  Historical  Character Tor-138 

VII. 
GENERAL   BENJAMIN  F.  BUTLER, 

EX-GOVERNOR    OF    MASSACHUSETTS. 

First  Recollections  of  Lincoln — Organizing  the  War 
Democrats — "  That's  Right ;  God  be  with  you  " — 
Strong  Measures  to  Prevent  Desertions — Giving  the 
President  a  Guard — Playing  Billiards  with  a  War 
Prisoner — Intending  to  Hang  Jeff.  Davis — The  Com- 
mander-in-Chief must  be  Brave — "  I  Think  I  can 
beat  Butler  " — As  Merciful  as  he  was  Brave — Rec- 
ommending Negro  Colonization — Fearing  Negro 
Guerrillas — How  the  Panama-Canal  Plan  was  ob- 
structed— Presidential  Aspirations  of  Mr.  Chase — 
Declining  the  Vice-Presidential  Nomination — A 
Second   Declination — A  Matter  of  History 139-160 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

VIII. 

CHARLES  CARLTON  COFFIN, 

WAR  CORRESPONDENT  OF  THE  "  BOSTON  JOURNAL." 

PAGES 

The  White  Handkerchief — Notified  of  his  Nomination — 
"All  Quiet  on  the  Potomac" — Hearing  of  his 
Friend's  Death — Before  the  Denouement — Five 
Forks — "Glory!  Glory!   Glory!" 161-184 

IX. 
FREDERICK   DOUGLASS, 

EX-UNITED    STATES   MARSHAL    OF    THE    DISTRICT    OF 
COLUMBIA. 

The  Difficulty  Regarding  Colored  Troops — Horace 
Greeley's  Criticism  on  the  War — A  Presentiment 
of  Lincoln's  Death — Andrew  Johnson — A  Peep  into 
his  Soul — A  Wonderful  Address — A  Sea  of  Beauty 
and  Elegance — The  first  great  American  that  drew 
no  Race  Distinctions — A  few  more  Inches  to  his 
Tail— In  the  Presence  of  a  big  Brother 185-195 

X. 

JUDGE  LAWRENCE  WELDON, 

U.    S.    COURT    OF    CLAIMS. 

"  There  Goes  Old  Mr.  Lincoln  " — He  Likes  the  Atmos- 
phere of  aCourt-house — Lawyer  Lincoln  and  "Cap- 
tain "  McClellan — A  Dramatic  Scene — "  Do  you 
see  that  Gun  ?  "—A  Touch  of  Sarcasm 197-2 iS 


CONTENTS,  IX 

XI. 
BENJAMIN   PERLEY   POORE, 

WASHINGTON    CORRESPONDENT    OF    THE    "  BOSTON 
JOURNAL." 

PAGES 

Mustered  in  by  Jeff.  Davis — That  Settled  his  Hash — 
Lincoln  and  Webster — The  Mislaid  Gripsack — 
*'  JievefWfis  a  iws  Moiitons  " — Bull  Run  Russell 217-231 

XII. 
TITIAN  J.  COFFEY, 

UNITED    STATES    ASSISTANT    ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 

A  Skunk  Story — Shadrach,   Meshach,  and  Abednego — 

A  Mast-Fed  Lawyer — The  Master-Mind 233-246 

XIIL 

REV.    HENRY   WARD    BEECHER. 

A  Dangerous  Animal — "  Is  Thy  Servant  a  Dog  ? " — 
Every  Way  for  Sunday — "  You  will  Pass  Bearer 
through  Lines" — "Come  Along" — Broken  and 
Despondent — Somewhere  to  Blow  Off 247-253 

XIV. 
HON.  WILLIAM  D.  KELLEY, 

MEMBER    OF    CONGRESS. 

"  Pray,  Governor,  how  tall  may  you  be?" — Big  Judge 
Davis  and  Little  Judge  Davis — A  Change  of  Opin- 
ion— Shakespeare — A  Startling  Contingency — They 
could  not  Appreciate  Humor — Goldwin  Smith's  Im- 
pressions      255-291 


X  •  CONTENTS. 

XV. 
HON.    CASSIUS   M.  CLAY, 

EX-MINISTER    TO    RUSSIA. 

PAGES 

The  Rectitude  of  Lincoln — Wit  Wins  the  Case — An  Ex- 
cellent Listener — Cassius  M.  Clay  Offered  the  War 
Secretaryship — Hungry  Harpies — Mercenary  Camp 
Followers — A  Great  Relief — Cassius  M.  Clay  Saves 
Washington — Talk  about  Emancipation — For  Rea- 
sons of  State  only — Unanswerable  Logic — "  Bless 
the  Lord  " 293-306 

XVL 
COL.  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL. 

Lincoln  not  a  Type — A  Unique  Man  without  Ancestor 
or  Successor— A  Profound  Observer  of  Human  Nat- 
ure— Polishing  Pebbles  and  Dimming  Diamonds— 
His  Candor  deceived  the  Deceitful — Greatest  Stat- 
ues need  least  Drapery — Lincoln  the  Liberator 307-314 

XVH. 
A.  H.  MARKLAND, 

EX-THIRD- ASSISTANT    POSTMASTER-GENERAL. 

Bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter— Kentucky  the  Key  to 
the  Situation — Beginning  of  Friendship  for  Grant — 
Grant's  Paducah  Proclamation — God  Bless  Sher- 
man and  his  Army— Lincoln's  Inflexible  Integrity. .    315-3-9 

XVIII. 
HON.  SCHUYLER  COLFAX, 

EX-VICE-PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

Mental  Idiosyncrasies — That  Awfully  Wicked  City  of 
Chicago— How  he  Hid  his  Sad  Heart— A  Cowardly 


CONTENTS.  xi 

PAGES 

Pair  of  Legs — "  Older  than  Methuselah  " — One  War 
at  a  Time — "  Lyons,  Go  Thou  and  do  Likewise  " — 
Taking  Down  a  Marquis — A  Great  Orator 331-349 

XIX. 
HON.   DANIEL  W.  VOORHEES, 

UNITED    STATES    SENATOR    FOR    INDIANA. 

"  No  Hanging  in  this  Case  " — The  President's  Clemency  351-362 

XX. 

HON.   CHARLES  A.   DANA, 

EDITOR    "  NEW    YORK    SUN." 

First  Sight  of  Lincoln — How  he  Received  Political 
Friends— No  Lack  of  Dignity  in  the  Man — An  In- 
flexible Public  Servant — Sincerity  toward  his  Cabi- 
net— Down  in  the  Wilderness — Profound  Sagacity 
of  the  President — The  Jacob  Thompson  Episode  . .   363-376 

XXI. 
HON.  JOHN  A.  KASSON, 

EX-MINISTER    TO    AUSTRIA. 

First  Blood — Conscientious  in  Appointing — "  I  haven't 
much  Influence  with  this  Administration  " — Lincoln 
Afraid  of  Stanton — Lcttrcs  de  Cachet — The  Last 
Act 377-385 

XXIL 

GENERAL  JAMES  B.   FRY. 

A  Man  without  Bad  Habits — The  Gnawing  for  a  Second 
Term — Something  in  a  Name — Stanton  Overmatched 


XI 1  CONTENTS. 


—Story  of  a  Big  Log— My  God !    Is  that  All  ?— 

Well  Done,  Good  and  Faithful  Servants 387-404 


XXIII. 

HON.  HUGH  Mcculloch, 

EX-SECRETARY    OF    THE    TREASURY. 

Lincoln  versus  Douglas — The  Time  for  Rebellion  had 
Come — A  Man  of  Strong  Religious  Convictions — 
Lincoln  and  Everett — Sublime  Faith  in  Republican 
Institutions , 405-425 

XXIV. 
HON.  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW, 

PRESIDENT  NEW  YORK  CENTRAL  RAILROAD. 

Virtue  of  Broad  Illustration — Feeling  of  Intense  Respon- 
sibility— "  The  Soldiers'  Vote  " — A  Complete  Meta- 
morphosis— "  Ganson,  how  Clean  you  Shave  " — Lin- 
coln Snubs  the  New  York  Millionaires — Stopping 
the  Machinery  of  a  Reception  to  Listen  to  a  Story — 
"  To  all  Whom  it  may  Concern  " — Horace  Greeley's 
Attacks — A  Supremely  Great  Man 427-438 

XXV. 

DAVID  R.  LOCKE. 

(petroleum   v.   nasby.) 

A  Great  and  Good  Man — Giving  his  Feet  a  Chance  to 
Breathe — A  Sad-faced  Man — Lincoln's  Humor — 
Douglas  a  Demagogue — Glimmering  of  the  Future 
— Offers  Nasby  a  Place — A  Hater  of  Bloodshed 
— The  Face  of  Death 439^453 


CONTENTS.  XllI 

XXVI. 
LEONARD    SWETT. 
(Lincoln's  story   of  his  own  life.) 

PAGES 

Lincoln  in  1849 — David  Davis's  Court — What  Lincoln 
Remembered  of  his  Youth — Six  Weeks  of  Schooling 
— What  he  Read — From  Indiana  to  Illinois — Rail- 
splitting — Flat-boating — Nearly  Killed  by  a  Negro 
— "  The  Greatest  Obstacle  of  my  Life  " — One  of 
the  "  Long  Nine  " — Lincoln's  Youth  was  Happy. . .   455-468 

XXVII. 
WALT   WHITMAN. 

Lincoln  on  Horseback — A  Characteristic  Likeness — 
How  to  Estimate  Lincoln's  Character — Lincoln 
Compared  with  Washington — With  Shakespeare  ....   469-475 

XXVIIL 
DONN    PIATT. 

A  Huge  Skeleton  in  Clothes — President  Lincoln  a  Scep- 
tic—" Why  Should  the  Spirit  of  Mortal  be  Proud  ?  " 
— Was  Lincoln  Forgiving? — "Squealing  like  Pigs" 
— The  Owls  in  Epaulets — Lincoln  no  Abolitionist. .   477-500 

XXIX. 

E.  W.  ANDREWS. 

A  Touching  Anecdote — Hon.  Secretary  Stanton — The 
Kindness  of  a  Brother — A  Sure  Cure  for  Boils — 
"  Floweth  for  the  President  " — Tribute  to  Horatio 
Seymour — A  Just  Decision 5o^~5  ^^ 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

XXX. 
JAMES   C.   WELLING. 

PAGES 

"  The  Great  Divide  " — Military  Action  and  Slavery — 
Hesitating  to  Issue  the  Proclamation — The  Famous 
Greeley  Letter — The  Greeley  Faction — A  Prudent 
Waiting  upon  Providence — Threatening  Divisions — 
A  Strict  Military  Necessity — The  Bitter  Mr.  Chase 
— Dark  and  Doubtful  Days — We  have  the  New 
Reckonings — The  Legal  Aspect  of  Emancipation — 
Peace  Negotiations — A  Cure  for  all  Evils — Emanci- 
pation a  Coup  d'iftat 5 19~557 

XXXL 

JOHN   CONNESS. 

Chase  a  Candidate — Geographical  Considerations — Lin- 
coln in  an  Angry  Mood — Appoints  Chase  Chief 
Justice — Fessenden's  Lack  of  Magnanimity 559-571 

XXXII. 
JOHN    B.   ALLEY, 

SENATOR    FROM    MASSACHUSETTS. 

An  Estimate  of  Lincoln — How  Douglas  Received  the 
Announcement  of  Lincoln's  Nomination — Why  Lin- 
coln did  not  Appoint  a  Massachusetts  Man  to  Office 
— Lincoln  and  Chase — The  Slave  Dealer — Pardon- 
ing a  Soldier — Lincoln's  Religion 573-591 

XXXIIL 
THOMAS    HICKS. 

NATIONAL    ACADEMICIAN. 

Lincoln's  Portrait — Dana  and  Greeley's  Interest — ''''Par- 
soii   Bro7vnl(nv   says   I  am   a   N^igger  " — Meddlers 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGFS 

With  Paints — Unrecognized  Visitors— How  Lincoln 
Heard  of  his  Nomination — Some  Fim  Out  of  a  Por- 
trait— Forecasting  the  Future — Lincoln's  Birth- 
place     593-607 

BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

U.  S.  Grant — E.  B.  Washburne — George  W.  Julian — 
R.  E.  Fenton— J.  P.  Usher— George  S.  Boutwell— 
Benjamin  F.  Butler — Charles  Carlton  Coffin — Fred- 
erick Douglass — Lawrence  Weldon — Ben.  Perley 
Poore — Titian  J.  Coffey — Henry  Ward  Beecher — 
William  D.  Kelley — Cassius  M.  Clay— Robert  G. 
IngersoU— A.  H.  Markland— Schuyler  Colfax — 
Daniel  W.  Voorhees — Charles  A.  Dana — John  A. 
Kasson — James  B.  Fry — Hugh  McCulloch — Chaun- 
cey  M.  Depew — David  R.  Locke — Leonard  Swett 
— Walt  Whitman — Donn  Piatt — E.  W.  Andrews- 
James  C.  Welling — John  Conness — John  B.  Alley — 
Thomas  Hicks 609-649 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 


Steel  Portrait  of  Abraham  Lincoln Frontispiece 

1  U.  S.  Grant i 

2  E.  B.  Washburne 5 

3  R.  E.  Fenton 67 

4  J.  P.  Usher 77 

5  George  S.  Boutwell 10 1 

6  Benjamin  F.  Butler 139 

7  Abraham  Lincoln's  Residence  at  Springfield,  111 168 

8  Frederick  Douglass 185 

9  Ben.  Perley  Poore 217 

10  Henry  Ward  Beecher    247 

1 1  Cassius  M.  Clay 293 

1 2  Robert  G.  IngersoU 307 

13  Schuyler  Colfax 331 

14  Charles  A.  Dana 363 

15  James  B.  Fry 387 

1 6  Hugh  McCuUoch 405 

1 7  Chauncey  M.  Depew 427 

18  David  R.  Locke 439 

19  Leonard  Swett 455 

20  Early  Home  of  Lincoln,  in  Illinois 459 

2 1  Walt  Whitman 469 

22  Characteristic  Likeness  of  Abraham  Lincoln 471 

23  Fac-simile  of  Letter  from  Abraham  Lincoln  to  Horace 

Greeley 523 

24  Thomas  Hicks 593 

25  A.  Lincoln,  from  the  Original  Painting  by  Thomas  Hicks.  602 

26  Fac-simile  of   Letter  from  O.  H.   Browning  to   Thomas 

Hicks 606 

27  Account  of  his  Birth-place,  in  Handwriting  of  Lincoln.  .  .  607 


INTRODUCTION. 


IT  was  mainly  with  the  view  of  accumulating  a  mass 
of  trustworthy  evidence  concerning  the  personal 
traits  and  private  utterances  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
that  I  conceived  the  plan  and  approached  the  task  of 
uniting  in  one  or  more  volumes  the  opinions  of  the 
most  distinguished  characters,  still  surviving,  of  the 
great  war  which  produced  them.  The  result  has 
been  gratifying  beyond  expectation,  furnishing — I 
think  it  is  not  too  much  to  say — a  remarkable  book 
about  a  remarkable  man. 

Most  men  who  visited  Washington  duringr  the 
civil  war  met  Abraham  Lincoln.  Amid  the  clash  of 
armed  strife  and  the  din  of  party  struggle,  he  never 
denied  to  the  humblest  citizen  a  willing  ear  and  a 
cheering  word.  Although  not  "  all  things  to  all 
men,"  in  the  common  acceptation  of  the  phrase,  there 
was  rarely  an  hour  too  crowded  for  him  to  utter  a 
memorable  word  or  to  tell  an  apt  story  to  the  passing 
visitor.  By  degrees  and  by  accretion,  these  utter- 
ances and  stories,  or  rather  these  parables,  have 
grown  in  number  with  the  growth  of  a  great  reputa- 


Xvili  INTRODUCTION. 

tion.  Story  after  story  and  trait  after  trait,  as  vary- 
ing in  value  as  in  authenticity,  has  been  added  to  the 
Lincolniana,  until  at  last  the  name  of  the  great  war 
President  has  come  to  be  a  biographic  lodestone,  at- 
tracting without  distinction  or  discrimination  both  the 
true  and  the  false.  Talleyrand  himself  was  not  made 
sponsor  for  so  many  historic  sayings  as  have  fallen 
to  the  heritage  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  It  may,  in- 
deed, be  doubted  whether  his  entire  presidential  term 
would  have  sufficed  to  utter  the  number  attributed 
to  him.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  he  rarely  failed  to 
seize  an  opportunity  to  illustrate  the  situation  by  a 
homely  parable,  which  substituted  a  story  for  an  ar- 
gument and  left  the  argument  to  the  listener's  own 
deductive  powers.  He  rarely  refused  audience  to 
any  one  He  rarely  declined  to  face  any  person  or 
any  situation,  however  annoying  the  interview  or 
the  occasion.  He  felt  himself  capable  of  confronting 
all  the  difficulties  of  his  high  place,  and  this  faith  in 
his  own  strength  sufficed  to  guide  him  through  some 
of  the  severest  trials  that  have  ever  fallen  to  the 
lot  of  a  public  man.  His  many-sided  nature  en- 
abled him  to  excel  in  most  of  the  tasks  that  he  at- 
tempted, and  the  triumphant  power  he  showed  on 
most  occasions  was  one  of  the  essential  characteris- 
tics of  his  nature.  From  a  local  politician  and  an 
obscure  member  of  Congress,  he  suddenly  arose  to 
be  one    of    the  world's  most    influential    statesmen. 


INTRODUCTION.  XIX 

From  a  volunteer  against  Indian  insurgents,  he  be- 
came the  mover  of  vast  armies,  and  met  with  firm- 
ness, patience  and  skill  the  most  harassing  exigencies 
of  a  great  civil  war.  Beginning  as  a  stump  speaker 
and  corner-grocery  debater,  he  lived  to  take  his  place 
in  the  front  rank  of  immortal  orators.  It  was  this 
power  of  compassing  the  most  trying  situations  that 
made  the  brief  and  crowded  space  of  four  years  suf- 
fice for  him  to  accomplish  a  task  that  generations 
had  been  preparing,  and  which,  to  use  his  own  words, 
before  assuming  the  presidency,  "offered  more  dif- 
ficulties than  had  devolved  upon  Washington." 

But,  to  struggle  was  not  new  to  him.  His  whole 
life  had  been  a  series  of  obscure  but  heroic  struggles, 
and  it  may  safely  be  said  that  no  man  of  Lincoln's 
historical  stature  ever  passed  through  a  more  check- 
ered or  more  varied  career.  It  fills  one  with  aston- 
ishment to  follow  the  vocations  that  successively  fell 
to  the  lot  of  this  extraordinary  man,  since,  as  a  boy, 
in  1826,  he  left  the  school  (to  reach  which  he 
walked  nine  miles  every  day),  to  the  sad  hour  when, 
in  1865,  he  perished,  as  President  of  the  United 
States.  Beginning  as  a  farm  laborer,  studying  at 
night  by  the  light  of  the  fire,  he  was  the  hostler,  he 
ground  corn,  he  built  fires  and  he  cooked — all  for 
thirty-one  cents  a  day.  In  1827,  he  is  recorded  as  an 
athlete  of  local  renown,  while,  at  the  same  time,  he 
was  a  writer  on  temperance  and  a  champion  of  the 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 


integrity  of  the  American  Union.  In  1830,  we  are 
told  that  he  undertook  "to  split  for  Mrs.  Nancy 
Miller  four  hundred  rails  for  every  yard  of  brown 
jean,  dyed  with  walnut  bark,  that  would  be  required 
to  make  him  a  pair  of  trousers."  He  next  turned 
his  attention  to  public  speaking — beginning  his 
career  as  orator  standing  on  an  empty  keg  at  Deca- 
tur. Next  we  find  him,  in  turn,  a  Mississippi  boat- 
man, a  clerk  at  the  polls,  a  salesman,  a  debater  in 
frontier  debating  clubs,  a  militia  captain  in  the  Black 
Hawk  War,  a  private  for  a  month  in  a  volunteer 
spy  company,  and  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for  the 
Legislature.  In  1832,  he  seriously  thought  of  be- 
coming a  blacksmith,  but  he  changed  his  views,  and 
bought  a  country  store  on  credit.  Ruined  by  a 
drunken  partner,  he  failed,  but,  as  money  came  to  him, 
he  paid  his  honest  debts — discharging  the  last  note  in 
1849.  W^  next  find  him  qualifying  as  a  land  sur- 
veyor, after  six  weeks'  study.  In  1833,  he  is  appointed 
postmaster  at  New  Salem,  using  his  hat  as  a  post- 
office.  He  was  also,  as  occasion  called,  a  referee  and 
umpire,  the  unquestioned  judge  in  all  local  disputes, 
wagers  and  horse  races.  Having  read  law,  he  became 
a  lawyer.  In  1834,  he  was  a  successful  candidate  for 
the  Legislature  of  Illinois,  and,  as  a  member  of  it, 
protested  against  slavery.  Challenged  about  this  time 
to  fight  a  duel,  he  became  reconciled  with  his  adver- 
sary and  married  Miss  Mary  Todd,   after  constitut- 


INTRODUCTION.  XXI 

ing  himself  her  champion.  Defeated  as  candidate 
for  Congress,  in  1843,  he  was  returned  in  1846. 
About  this  time  he  patented  a  novel  steamboat. 
In  1854,  he  sought  without  success  to  be  appointed 
General  Land  Commissioner.  Subsequently,  he  is 
seen  engaged  vigorously  in  State  politics,  opposing 
Judge  Douglas  in  a  debate  that  attracted  national 
attention,  and  that  gave  him  the  nomination  for  the 
Presidency  of  the  United  States. 

The  face  of  Lincoln  told  the  story  of  his  life — a 
life  of  sorrow  and  struggle,  of  deep-seated  sadness,  of 
ceaseless  endeavor.  It  would  have  taken  no  Lavater 
to  interpret  the  rugged  energy  stamped  on  that  un- 
comely plebeian  face,  with  its  great  crag-like  brows 
and  bones,  or  to  read  there  the  deep  melancholy 
that  overshadowed  every  feature  of  it. 

Even  as  President  of  the  United  States,  at  a  period 
when  the  nation's  peril  invested  the  holder  of  the 
office  with  almost  despotic  power,  there  seems  to 
have  been  in  Lincoln's  nature  a  modesty  and  lack 
of  desire  to  rule  which  nothing  could  lessen  or  efface. 
Wielding  the  power  of  a  king,  he  retained  the  mod- 
esty of  a  commoner. 

And,  surely,  it  is  not  among  the  least  remarkable 
of  her  achievements,  that  American  Democracy 
should  have  produced  great  statesmen  and  great 
soldiers,  when  called  for  by  great  events,  who,  as  a 
rule,  have  been  free  from  that  dangerous   ambition 


XXll  INTRODUCTION. 

which  has  tainted  the  fairest  names  of  European 
history.  If  we  have  not  had  our  age  of  Pericles, 
of  Augustus  or  of  Leo,  we  can  boast  of  a  history 
that  has  given  us,  within  the  period  of  a  century, 
the  patriotism  of  a  Washington,  a  Lincoln  and  a 
Grant. 

If  we  may  believe  tradition,  Lincoln  came  from  a 
stock  which  proves  the  hereditary  source  of  his 
chief  characteristics.  His  humor,  his  melancholy,  his 
strange  mingling  of  energy  and  indolence,  his  gen- 
erosity, his  unconventional  character,  his  frugality, 
his  tenderness,  his  courage,  all  are  traceable  to 
his  ancestry  as  well  as  to  the  strange  society  which 
molded  the  boy  and  nerved  the  man  to  face  without 
fear  every  danger  that  beset  his  path.  He  revealed 
to  the  old  world  a  new  type  of  man,  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  it  is  true,  but  modified  by  circumstances 
so  novel  and  potent,  and  even  dominating  in  their 
influence,  as  to  mark  a  new  departure  in  human 
character.  Lincoln  was  the  type  and  representative 
of  the  "  Western  man  " — an  evolution  of  family  isola- 
tion, of  battles  with  primeval  forces  and  the  most 
savage  races  of  men,  of  the  loneliness  of  untrodden 
forests,  of  the  absence  of  a  potent  public  opinion,  of 
a  state  of  society  in  which  only  inherent  greatness  of 
human  character  was  respected  ;  in  which  tradition 
and  authority  went  for  naught,  and  courage  and  will 
were   alone   recognized   as   having   rightful   domina- 


IN  TROD  uc  tion:  xxH  I 

tion.  The  peculiarities  of  this  society  were  not 
less  reflected  in  its  character  than  in  its  tastes. 
Thus,  in  Lincoln,  for  example,  Rabelais  and  Machia- 
velli,  coarse  wit  and  political  cunning,  were  quite 
as  conspicuous  as  that  tenderness  and  self-abnega- 
tion which  recall  the  early  history  of  the  Christian 
Church.  The  Western  man,  the  American  of  the 
Western  prairies  and  forests,  could  in  no  sense  be 
termed  a  colonial  Encrlishman,  as  a  lar^e  class  of 
cultivated  Eastern  Americans  might  not  unjustly  be 
described.  England  had  no  mortgage  on  the  mind  or 
character  or  manners  of  these  children  of  the  West. 
The  Western  settlers  had  no  respect  for  English 
traditions  or  teachings,  whether  of  Church  or  of 
State.  Accustomed  all  their  lives  to  grapple  with 
nature  face  to  face,  they  thought  and  they  spoke, 
with  all  the  boldness  of  unrestrained  sincerity,  on 
every  topic  of  human  interest  or  of  sacred  memory, 
without  the  slightest  recognition  of  any  right  of 
external  authority  to  impose  restrictions,  or  even  to 
be  heard  in  protest  against  their  intellectual  inde- 
pendence. As  their  life  developed  the  utmost  in- 
dependence of  creed  and  individuality,  he  whose 
originality  was  the  most  fearless  and  self-contained 
was  chief  among  them.  Among  such  a  people, 
blood  of  their  blood  and  bone  of  their  bone,  differ- 
ing from  them  only  in  stature,  Abraham  Lincoln 
arose  to  rule  the  American  people  with  a  more  than 


XXIV  n\TRODUCTION. 

kingly  power,  and  received  from  them  a  more  than 
feudal  loyalty. 

Those  who  follow  his  life  must  be  impressed 
with  the  equal  serenity  of  Lincoln's  temper,  in  mo- 
ments of  the  darkest  adversity  as  in  the  hours  of 
his  greatest  triumphs.  It  has  been  said  that  it  is 
easier  to  stand  adversity  than  prosperity,  but,  how- 
ever true  this  may  be  of  private  life,  it  is  hardly 
applicable  to  times  of  stress  in  public  affairs.  I  was 
struck  with  the  remark  of  a  great  captain,  when,  in 
returning  some  compliment  about  America,  I  re- 
ferred to  the  feats  of  the  armies  under  his  command. 
'*  I  accept  your  praise  of  our  victories,"  he  rejoined, 
"  but  what  our  armies  would  have  been  in  defeat  I 
cannot  say." 

Lincoln's  character  was  weighed  in  both  balances  ; 
and  it  was  not  found  wanting.  No  man  could 
have  borne  more  nobly  than  he  the  sternest  test  of 
defeat.  At  these  moments  of  extreme  tension,  his 
character  alone  came  to  his  rescue. 

He  was  melancholy  without  being  morbid — a  lead- 
ing characteristic  of  men  of  genuine  humor ;  and  it 
was  this  sense  of  humor  that  often  enabled  him  to 
endure  the  most  cruel  strokes,  that  called  for  his 
sense  of  pity  and  cast  a  gloom  over  his  official  life. 
On  these  occasions  he  would  relieve  himself  by  com- 
paring trifles  with  great  things  and  great  things  with 
trifles.      No  story  was  too  trivial  or  even  too  coarse 


INTRODUCTION.  XXV 


for  his  purpose;  provided  that  it  aptly  illustrated  his 
ideas  or  served  his  policy.  To  this  peculiar  tend- 
ency of  mind  we  owe  the  many  stories  and  quaint 
sayings  which  lend  to  every  recollection  of  Lincoln 
a  strange  and  uncommon  interest. 

I  know  no  better  illustration  of  the  peculiar 
rapidity  with  which  he  would  pass  from  one  side 
of  his  nature  to  the  other  than  a  reminiscence  for 
which  I  am  indebted  to  Governor  Curtin  of  Penn- 
sylvania, who,  at  the  time,,  was  one  of  the  leading 
"  War  Governors."  He  was  summoned  to  see  Lin- 
coln, at  the  White  House,  on  arriving  after  mid- 
night from  the  battle-field  of  Fredericksburg,  where 
he  had  been  inspecting  the  wounded  and  survey- 
ing this  field  of  national  disaster.  Lincoln  showed 
much  anxiety  about  the  wounded,  and  asked  many 
questions  about  the  battle. 

Governor  Curtin  replied,  "  Mr.  President,  it  was 
not  a  battle,  it  was  a  butchery,"  and  proceeded  to 
give  a  graphic  description  of  the  scenes  he  had  wit- 
nessed. Lincoln  was  heart-broken  at  the  recital,  and 
soon  reached  a  state  of  nervous  excitement  border- 
ing on  insanity. 

Finally,  as  the  Governor  was  leaving  the  room,  he 
went  forward,  and,  taking  the  President  by  the  hand, 
tenderly  expressed  his  sympathy  for  his  sorrow. 
He  said,  "  Mr.  President,  I  am  deeply  touched  by 
your  sorrow,  and  at  the  distress  I  have  caused  you. 


XXVI  INTRODUCTION. 

I  have  only  answered  your  questions.  No  doubt 
my  impressions  have  been  colored  by  the  sufferings 
I  have  seen.  I  trust  matters  will  look  brighter  when 
the  official  reports  come  in.  I  would  give  all  I 
possess  to  know  how  to  rescue  you  from  this  ter- 
rible war." 

Lincoln's  whole  aspect  suddenly  changed,  and  he 
relieved  his  mind  by  telling  a  story. 

"  Tliis  reminds  me,  Governor,"  he  said,  "  of  an 
old  farmer  out  in  Illinois  that  I  used  to  know.  He 
took  it  into  his  head  to  go  into  hog  raising.  He 
sent  out  to  Europe  and  imported  the  finest  breed 
of  hogs  he  could  buy.  The  prize  hog  was  put  in 
a  pen,  and  the  farmer's  two  mischievous  boys — 
James  and  John — were  told  to  be  sure  not  to  let 
him  out.  But  James,  the  worst  of  the  two,  let 
the  brute  out  next  day.  The  hog  went  straight 
for  the  boys,  and  drove  John  up  a  tree.  Then 
the  hog  went  for  the  seat  of  James's  trousers,  and 
the  only  way  the  boy  could  save  himself  was  by 
holding  on  to  the  hog's  tail.  The  hog  would  not 
give  up  his  hunt  nor  the  boy  his  hold  !  After 
they  had  made  a  good  many  circles  around  the 
tree,  the  boy's  courage  began  to  give  out,  and  he 
shouted  to  his  brother,  '  I  say,  John,  come  down, 
quick,  and  help  me  let  this  Jiog  go  I '  Now,  Gov- 
ernor, that  is  exactly  my  case.  I  wish  some  one 
would  come  and  help  me  let  thi-s  hog  go  !  " 


INTRODUCTION.  XXVll 

This  was  a  striking  illustration  of  the  sudden  tran- 
sitions to  which  Lincoln's  nature  was  prone.  It 
sought  relief  in  the  most  trying  situations  by  recall- 
ing some  parallel  incident  of  a  humorous  character. 
His  sense  of  humor  never  flagged.  Even  in  his 
telegraphic  correspondence  with  his  generals  we 
have  instances  of  it  which  reflect  his  peculiar 
vein. 

General  Sherman,  who,  like  Caesar  in  this  as  in 
ot'her  respects,  enjoys  a  joke  even  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, relates  a  story  that  illustrates  this  peculiar- 
ity. Soon  after  the  battle  of  Shiloh  the  President 
promoted  two  officers  to  Major-Generalships.  A 
good  deal  of  dissatisfaction  was  expressed  at  this 
act.  Among  other  critics  of  the  President  was 
General  Sherman  himself,  who  telegraphed  to 
Washington,  that,  if  such  ill-advised  promotions 
continued,  the  best  chance  for  officers  would  be  to 
be  transferred  from  the  front  to  the  rear.  This 
telegram  was  shown  to  the  President.  He  immedi- 
ately replied  by  telegraph  to  the  General  that,  in  the 
matter  of  appointments,  he  was  necessarily  guided 
by  officers  whose  opinions  and  knowledge  he  valued 
and  respected. 

"  The  two  appointments,"  he  added,  "  referred  to 
by  you  in  your  dispatch  to  a  gentleman  in  Wash- 
ington were  made  at  the  suggestion  of  two  men 
whose    advice   and  character    I    prize   most    highly : 


XXV  i  i  i  IN  TROD  UC  TION. 

I  refer  to  Generals  Grant  and  Sherman."  General 
Sherman  then  recalled  the  fact  that,  in  the  flush  of 
victory,  General  Grant  and  himself  had  both  recom- 
mended these  promotions,  but  that  it  had  escaped 
his  memory  at  the  time  of  writing  his  telegraphic 
dispatch. 

The  oddity  of  Lincoln's  reply  is  characteristic. 
He  subsequently  sent  to  General  Sherman  the  right 
to  promote,  at  his  own  choice,  eight  colonels  under 
his  command. 

His  feeling  toward  Sherman  and  Grant,  at  the 
close  of  the  war,  as  well  as  his  extreme  sensitiveness 
to  rebuke  on  the  part  of  those  he  esteemed,  is  well 
illustrated  by  another  incident,  for  which,  also,  I  am 
indebted  to  General  Sherman.  In  conversation  with 
him — I  think  at  Richmond — the  President  asked 
the  General  whether  he  could  guess  what  had  al- 
ways attracted  him  to  Grant  and  Sherman  and  led 
to  a  friendlier  feeling  for  them  than  he  had  for 
others.  "It  was  because,"  he  said,  "you  never 
found  fault  with  me,  from  the  days  of  Vicksburg 
down." 

There  is  a  sermon  in  these  words  which  sug- 
gests many  reflections.  The  responsibility  of  office 
weighed  heavily  upon  the  President,  but  never  over- 
whelmed him ;  yet  the  rebuke  of  a  friend  caused  him 
the  keenest  pangs. 

General    Schenck    once    told    me    of   being    with 


INTRODUCTION.  XXIX 

Lincoln  on  the  occasion  of  his  receiving  bad  news 
from  the  army.  Placing  his  hands  upon  the 
General's  knee  and  speaking  with  much  emotion,  he 
said,  "You  have  little  idea  of  the  terrible  weight  of 
care  and  sense  of  responsibility  of  this  office  of  mine. 
Schenck,  if  to  be  at  the  head  of  Hell  is  as  hard  as 
what  I  have  to  undergo  here,  I  could  find  it  in  my 
heart  to  pity  Satan  himself." 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  remark  that  Lincoln  was 
sometimes  weary  of  the  great  burden  that  had 
fallen  on  him,  and  that  he  would  gladly  have  re- 
sio-ned  it  to  others  had  this  seemed  possible  without 
imperilling  the  national  interests  he  had  so  close  at 
heart. 

The  following  war  episode,  related  to  me  by  Mr. 
W.  H.  Croffut,  who  has  given  much  attention  to  the 
subject,  will  help  to  illustrate  the  willingness  of  Lin- 
coln to  put  into  other  hands,  and  even  to  surrender 
to  another  political  party,  the  administration  of  the 
Government,  provided  that  the  act  could  contribute 
toward  the  great  end  of  peace  and  reunion.  Mr, 
Croffut  says  : 

I  have  forgotten  the  exact  month  to  which  the 
beginning  of  this  narrative  refers  ;  indeed,  I  am  not 
quite  certain  about  the  year,  but  it  was  winter  time 
— probably  the  dawn  of  1880.  I  had  called  at 
Thurlow  Weed's,  to  inquire  after  the  health  of  that 
acred  man,  then  fourscore,  and  to  enjoy  hearing  him 


XXX  INTRODUCTION. 

talk  about  the  by-gone  times  in  which  he  bore  a  dis- 
tinguished part.  His  tall  form  reclined  upon  a 
lounge  wheeled  in  front  of  a  hearth  blazing  with 
cannel  coal.  As  I  casually  mentioned  General  Mc- 
Clellan  in  the  conversation,  he  raised  himself  on  his 
elbow  and  said,  "  He  might  have  been  President  as 
well  as  not."  Responding  to  my  expression  of 
surprise  and  interest,  he  went  on  : 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  led  up  to  it.  About  the 
middle  of  December,  1862,  Seward  telegraphed  me 
to  come  to  Washington.  It  had  happened  before 
that  I  had  been  summoned  in  the  same  way.  I 
took  it  as  a  matter  of  course  and  caught  the  first 
train  South.  I  got  to  Washington,  and,  after  break- 
fast, went  straight  to  the  State  Department.  Mr. 
Seward  was  waiting  for  me.  He  took  me  right  over 
to  the  White  House,  saying,  '  The  President  wants 
to  see  you.' 

"  We  found  the  President  deeply  depressed  and 
distressed.  I  had  never  seen  him  in  such  a  mood. 
*  Everything  goes  wrong,'  he  broke  out.  '  The  rebel 
armies  hold  their  own  ;  Grant  is  wandering  around 
in  Mississippi ;  Burnside  manages  to  keep  ahead  of 
Lee  ;  Seymour  has  carried  New  York,  and,  if  his 
party  carries  and  holds  many  of  the  Northern  States, 
we  shall  have  to  give  up  the  fight,  for  we  can  never 
conquer  three-quarters  of  our  countrymen,  scattered 
in  front,  flank,  and  rear.     What  shall  we  do  ? ' 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXI 

"  I  suo'gested  that  we  could  continue  to  wait,  and 
that  the  man  capable  of  leading  our  splendid  armies 
would  come  in  time. 

"'That's  what  I've  been  saying,'  said  Seward, 
who  didn't  believe,  even  then,  that  the  war  was  go- 
ing to  be  a  long  one. 

'*  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  seem  to  heed  the  remark, 
but  he  said : 

"  '  Governor  Seymour  could  do  more  for  our  cause 
than  any  other  man  living.  He  has  been  elected 
Governor  of  our  largest  State.  If  he  would  come 
to  the  front  he  could  control  his  partisans,  and  give 
a  new  impetus  to  the  war.  I  have  sent  for  you,  Mr. 
Weed,  to  ask  you  to  go  to  Governor  Seymour  and 
tell  him  what  I  say.  Tell  him,  now  is  his  time. 
Tell  him,  I  do  not  wish  to  be  President  again,  and 
that  the  leader  of  the  other  party,  provided  it  is  in 
favor  of  a  vigorous  war  against  the  rebellion,  should 
have  my  place.  Entreat  him  to  give  the  true  ring 
to  his  annual  message  ;  and  if  he  will,  as  he  easily 
can,  place  himself  at  the  head  of  a  great  Union 
party,  I  will  gladly  stand  aside  and  help  to  put  him 
in  the  Executive  Chair.  All  we  want  is  to  have  the 
rebellion  put  down.' 

"  I  was  not  greatly  surprised,  for  I  knew  before 
that  such  was  the  President's  view.  I  had  before 
heard  him  say,  *  If  there  is  a  man  who  can  push  our 
armies  forward  one  mile  further  or  one  hour  faster 


XXXll  INTRODUCTION. 

than  I  can,  he  is  the  man  that  ought  to  be  in  my 
place.' 

"  I  visited  Governor  Seymour  at  Albany,  and 
delivered  my  commission  from  Lincoln.  It  was 
received  most  favorably.  Seymour's  feeling  was 
always  right,  but  his  head  was  generally  wrong. 
When  I  left  him  it  was  understood  that  his  message 
to  the  Legislature  would  breathe  an  earnest  Union 
spirit,  praising  the  soldiers  and  calling  for  more, 
and  omitting  the  usual  criticisms  of  the  President. 
I  forwarded  this  expectation  to  Lincoln. 

"Judge  of  my  disappointment  and  chagrin  when 
Seymour's  message  came  out — a  document  calcu- 
lated to  aid  the  enemy.  It  demanded  that  the  war 
should  be  prosecuted  '  on  constitutional  grounds ' 
— as  if  any  war  ever  was  or  ever  could  be — and 
denounced  the  administration  for  the  arbitrary  arrest 
of  Vallandigham  and  the  enforcement  of  the  draft. 

"This  attempt  to  enlist  the  leader  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  having  failed,  Lincoln  authorized  me 
to  make  the  same  overture  to  McClellan. 

"'Tell  the  General,'  he  said,  'that  we  have  no 
wish  to  injure  or  humiliate  him  ;  that  we  wish  only 
for  the  success  of  our  armies ;  that  if  he  will  come 
forward  and  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  Union- 
Democratic  party,  and,  through  that  means,  push 
forward  the  Union  cause,  I  will  gladly  step  aside 
and  do  all  I  can  to  secure  his  election  in  1864.' 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXlll 

**  I  opened  negotiations  through  S.  L.  M.  Barlow, 
McClellan's  next  friend.  Mr.  Barlow  called.  I  told 
him  the  scheme  to  bring  McClellan  forward.  He 
approved  of  it,  and  agreed  to  see  the  General.  He 
shortly  afterward  told  me  he  had  seen  him  and 
secured  his  acquiescence  ;  '  for,'  he  added,  '  Mac  is 
eager  to  do  all  he  can  do  to  put  down  the  rebellion.' 
I  suggested  a  great  Union-Democratic  meeting  in 
Union  Square,  at  which  McClellan  should  preside 
and  set  forth  his  policy,  and  this  was  agreed  to  by 
both  Mr.  Barlow  and  McClellan.  At  the  sugges- 
tion of  Mr.  Barlow,  I  drew  up  some  memoranda  of 
principles  which  it  seemed  to  me  desirable  to  set 
forth  on  that  occasion,  and  these  Mr.  Barlow  agreed 
to  deliver  to  McClellan.  The  time  set  for  the  mass 
meeting  was  Monday,  June  i6th.  Once  more  there 
seemed  a  promise  of  breaking  the  Northern  hostil- 
ity and  ending  the  war,  by  organizing  a  great  inde- 
pendent Union  party  under  McClellan.  But  this 
hope  failed  us,  too.  For,  on  the  very  eve  of  the 
meeting,  I  received  a  formal  letter  from  McClellan 
declining  to  preside,  without  giving  reasons.  If  he 
had  presided  at  that  war-meeting,  and  had  persist- 
ently followed  it  up,  nothing  but  death  could  have 
kept  him  from  being  elected  President  of  the  United 
States  in  1864." 

This  narrative,  continues  Mr.  Croffut,  seemed  to 
me  so  extraordinary  that  I  called  on  General  McClel- 


XXXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

Ian,  who  resided  on  Gramercy  Park,  and  told  him  the 
story,  with  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  why  he  did 
not  preside  at  the  meeting  after  agreeing  to  do  so. 

"You  amaze  me!"  he  said.  "No  such  events 
ever  occurred.  Mr.  Weed  is  a  good  old  man,  and 
he  has  forgotten.  Mr.  Lincoln  never  offered  me 
the  Presidency  in  any  contingency.  I  never  de- 
clined to  preside  at  a  war-meeting.  How  could  I, 
when  I  was  a  Union  soldier,  and  the  only  criticism 
I  ever  made  on  the  Administration  was  that  it  did 
not  push  the  armies  fast  enough  ?  There  never  was 
a  time  when  I  would  have  refused  to  preside  at  any 
meeting  that  could  help  the  Union  cause.  I  re- 
member nothing  about  any  such  memoranda,  and 
am  sure  I  never  wrote  to  Thurlow  Weed  in  my 
life." 

I  asked  the  General  if  no  such  overture  was  ever 
made  by  Mr.  Weed. 

"  Not  as  I  remember,"  he  said.  "  I  recollect  his 
once  speaking  to  me  about  the  desirableness  of 
taking  the  leadership  of  a  War-Democratic  party, 
but  I  do  not  remember  the  purport  of  this  proposi- 
tion." 

At  General  McClellan's  suggestion  I  called  on 
Mr.  Barlow,  who  also  had  forgotten  all  about  it. 

Returnino^  to  Mr.  Weed's,  I  asked  if  he  could 
find  the  letter  received  from  General  McClellan,  in 
which  he  declined  to  preside  at  a  war-meeting.      He 


IN  TROD  UC  TION.  XXXV 

doubted  if  he  had  kept  it,  but  Miss  Harriet  Weed, 
his  faithful  daughter  and  invaluable  secretary,  going 
in  search  of  it,  returned  in  an  hour,  bringing  it  from 
an  upper  room.      It  ran  as  follows  : 

(Private) 

Oaklands,  N.  J.,  Jutie  13,  1S63. 
My  Dear  Sir  : 

Your  kind  note  is  received. 

For  what  I  cannot  doubt  that  you  would  consider 
good  reasons,  I  have  determined  to  decline  the  com- 
pliment of  presiding  over  the  proposed  meeting  of 
Monday  next. 

I  fully  concur  with  you  in  the  conviction  that  an 
honorable  peace  is  not  now  possible,  and  that  the 
war  must  be  prosecuted  to  save  the  Union  and  the 
Government,  at  whatever  cost  of  time  and  treasure 
and  blood. 

I  am  clear,  also,  in  the  conclusion  that  the  policy 
governing  the  conduct  of  the  war  should  be  one 
looking  not  only  to  military  success,  but  also  to 
ultimate  re-union,  and  that  it  should  consequently 
be  such  as  to  preserve  the  rights  of  all  Union-loving 
citizens,  wherever  they  may  be,  as  far  as  compatible 
with  military  security.  My  views  as  to  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  war  remain,  substantially,  as  they  have 
been  from  the  beginning  of  the  contest ;  these  views 
I  have  made  known  officially. 


XXX  V 1  INTROD  UC  TIO  N. 

I  will   endeavor  to   write   you    more   fully  before 

Monday. 

In  the  meantime  believe  me  to  be,  in  great  haste, 

truly  your  friend, 

GEORGE  B.  McCLELLAN. 

Hon.  Thurlow  Weed,  New  York. 

"  The  General  has  forgotten  that  formal  letter, 
has  he?"  said  Mr.  Weed,  smiling.  "  If  he  had  pre- 
sided at  that  meeting,  and  rallied  his  party  to  the 
support  of  the  war,  he  would  have  been  President. 
I  never  heard  what  his  reasons  were,  either  '  before 
Monday'  or  any  other  day.  Just  see  what  an  em- 
barrassing time  it  was  to  refuse  to  preside  at  a  war- 
meetinof.  Grant  seemed  to  be  stalled  in  front  of 
Vicksburg,  and  that  very  morning  came  a  report 
that  he  was  going  to  raise  the  siege.  Banks  was 
defeated,  the  day  before,  at  Port  Hudson,  and,  two 
days  earlier,  a  rebel  privateer  had  captured  six  of 
our  vessels  off  the  Chesapeake.  The  very  day  that 
McClellan  wrote  the  letter,  Lee  was  rapidly  march- 
ing through  Maryland  into  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
North  was  in  a  panic.  There  couldn't  have  been  a 
worse  time  to  decline  to  preside  at  a  Union  meet- 
ing, and  I  am  sorry  that  the  General  has  forgotten 
what  prevented  his  doing  so." 

I  took  the  letter  and  returned  to  General  Mc- 
Clellan with  it. 

"Well!"    he    exclaimed,   as    he    took    it    and    in- 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXVll 

spected  it,  "  that  is  my  writing.  I  wrote  that,  and 
had  forgotten  about  it.  I  don't  know  why  I  de- 
cHned  to  preside ;  but  it  was  probably  because  I 
am  shy  in  the  presence  of  multitudes,  am  not  in 
the  habit  of  speech-making,  and  should  be  certain  to 
preside  awkwardly.  But  why  should  anybody  sup- 
pose me  indifferent  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war  ?  " 

"Because,"  I  said,  "a  year  later  they  found  you 
standing  as  a  candidate  for  President  on  a  platform 
which  declared  the  war  up  to  that  time  a  failure, 
and  seemed  to  disparage  the  services  of  our  soldiers 
in  the  field." 

"  I  never  stood  on  that  platform  a  day  ! "  he  ex- 
claimed. "  Everybody  knows  I  did  not.  I  repudi- 
ated it  in  my  letter,  and  made  my  repudiation  of  it 
the  only  condition  of  accepting  the  nomination.  I 
told  all  my  friends  so  ! " 

"Mr.  Weed  thinks,"  I  added,  "that  if  you  had 
presided  instead  of  refusing  to  preside,  and  had  fol- 
lowed it  up  with  corresponding  action,  it  would  have 
united  the  North,  finished  the  war  a  year  sooner, 
saved  thousands  of  lives,  and  made  you  President." 

"Oh,  well,"  he  said,  laughing,  "that's  an  interest- 
ing speculation.  Nobody  can  tell.  At  any  rate  I 
didn't,  and  it's  all  over  now." 

Shortly  afterward,  I  mentioned  these  facts  to 
Frederick  W.  Seward. 

"Yes,"  he  said,   "I  have  often  heard  Mr.  Weed 


XXX  V  iii  IX  TROD  UC  TION. 

tell  the  story.  The  fact  is  that  neither  Lincoln 
nor  my  father  expected  that  the  Administration 
would  be  re-elected.  Their  only  hope  was  to  have 
the  war  carried  on  vigorously.  The  President  used 
to  say,  '  I  am  sure  there  are  men  who  could  do  more 
for  the  success  of  our  armies  in  my  place  than  I  am 
doing ;  I  would  gladly  stand  aside  and  let  such  a 
one  take  my  place,  any  day.'  Looking  back  at  the 
Mexican  and  other  wars,  we  thought  some  general 
would  succeed  Lincoln  in  1864,  and  McClellan  evi- 
dently thought  so  too.  We  did  not  foresee  the 
tremendous  victories  and  the  splendid  wave  of  pa- 
triotic feeling  that  carried  Lincoln  in  again." 

Colonel  John  Hay  tells  me  that  he  is  acquainted 
with  Lincoln's  effort  to  stir  up  McClellan  and  Sey- 
mour, heard,  I  suppose,  when  he  was  in  the  White 
House.  And  Roscoe  Conkling  tells  me  that  it  is 
not  news  to  him. 

One  morning,  a  year  before  he  died,  Mr.  Weed 
said  to  me  : 

"  Governor  Seymour  was  here  yesterday.  He 
stayed  to  dinner,  and  we  had  a  good  talk  about  old 
times.  I  spoke  of  the  scheme  to  make  him  Presi- 
dent, and  he  remembered  the  details  as  I  did.  But 
he  said  that  his  reason  for  his  action  was  that  he 
'wanted  to  carry  on  the  war  legally.'  He  said  he 
couldn't  have  carried  his  party  with  him  to  approve 
of  the  arbitrary  arrest  by  Stanton  of  the   Northern 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXIX 

Opponents  of  the  war.  When  Seymour  was  sitting 
here  I  told  him  that  he  would  have  been  President, 
certain,  if  he  had  come  out  heartily  and  unreserv- 
edly for  the  war  in  1863;  and  he  said,  'Well,  it 
isn't  much  matter.  I  was  not  in  good  health  at  the 
time,  and  it  might  have  killed  me.  It  is  a  hard, 
laborious,  thankless  office — it  is  just  as  well  as 
It  is. 


No  act  or  utterance  of  General  McClellan  should 
be  interpreted  to  convey  any  feeling  of  resentment 
toward  Lincoln.  In  a  conversation,  not  over  two 
months  before  his  death,  General  McClellan  affirmed 
to  me  his  belief  that  Lincoln  intended  to  give  him 
all  the  time  for  preparation  that  he  required  and 
demanded.  The  conversation  turned  upon  the 
battle  of  Antietam,  when  some  reference  to  the 
President's  visit  to  the  field  occasioned  the  remark. 

General  McClellan  had  fought  the  battle  without 
a  commission.  The  victory  proclaimed,  the  Presi- 
dent at  once  visited  the  scene  of  conflict. 

"  I  remember  well,"  said  General  McClellan,  "  our 
sitting  on  the  hillside  together,  Lincoln,  in  his  own 
ungainly  way,  propped  up  by  his  long  legs,  with  his 
knees  almost  under  his  chin. 

"'General,'  said  he  to  me,  'you  have  saved  the 
country.  You  must  remain  in  command  and  carry 
us  through  to  the  end.' 


xl  IN  TRODUCl  JON. 

"'That  will  be  impossible,'  replied  McClellan. 
'  We  need  time.  The  influences  at  Washington  will 
be  too  strong  for  you,  Mr.  President.  I  will  not  be 
allowed  the  required  time  for  preparation. 

General  McClellan  then  recalled  the  exact  words 
of  Lincoln  in  reply : 

"  General,  I  pledge  myself  to  stand  between  you 
and  harm." 

"  And  I  honestly  believe,"  said  General  McClellan, 
"  that  the  President  meant  every  word  he  said,  but 
that  the  influences  at  Washington  were,  as  I  pre- 
dicted, too  strong  for  him  or  for  any  living  man." 

In  a  conversation  with  General  Sherman,  I  once 
asked  him  if  he  had  ever  heard  the  story  that 
General  Grant,  at  one  important  crisis,  cut  the  tele- 
graph wires  between  Washington  and  his  headquar- 
ters in  order  to  get  rid  of  civil  interference  with  his 
military  operations. 

"  Did  he  ? "  said  the  General,  laughing,  "  why,  I 
did    that !      I    never    heard    before    that    Grant    did 

it ! " 

He  spoke  for  some  time  of  the  serious  obstacles 
to  the  prosecution  of  the  war  caused  by  political 
interferences,  and  added,  "  I  could  do  more  with 
one  hundred  thousand  men  free  from  political  con- 
trol, than  with  three  hundred  thousand  near  Wash- 
ington." 

In  the  better  sense,   Lincoln  was,  perhaps,  some- 


INTRODUCTION.  xli. 

what  of  a  casuist  in  believing  that  the  end  some- 
times sanctifies  the  means  ;  but  his  masterly  com- 
mon sense  was  the  guiding  beacon  in  every  stress 
and  storm  of  events.  He  was  so  great  in  all  the 
larger  attributes  of  statesmanship  that  few,  aside 
from  those  intimately  associated  with  him,  recog- 
nized his  genius  as  a  practical  politician.  He  was 
ambitious,  not  merely  because  he  knew  his  own 
great  resources  and  aptitudes,  but  because  he  pro- 
foundly believed  himself  to  be  necessary  to  the 
country  in  the  dire  exigencies  of  the  period.  He 
alone  had  complete  grasp  of  a  situation  unparalleled 
in  our  history ;  and  this  was  the  general  conviction 
of  the  large  majority  of  the  loyal  men  of  the  North. 
There  is  no  cause,  then,  to  marvel  that  he  should 
have  greatly  desired  a  re-election  in  1864,  because 
his  second  term  would  not  only  cover  the  close  of 
the  war  drama  which,  for  four  years,  had  absorbed 
the  attention  of  a  watchful  world,  but  also  the  still 
greater  responsibilities  of  reconstructing  the  shat- 
tered Union. 

Recognizing  the  fact  that  the  anxiety  of  Lin- 
coln for  a  second  term  was  a  far  nobler  passion  than 
anything  rooted  in  mere  personal  pride  or  ambition, 
and  remembering  his  offer  to  Governor  Seymour, 
we  can  easily  understand  how  he  could  justify  him- 
self in  bringing  all  his  skill  in  practical  politics  to 
bear  on  the  problem  of  re-election. 


.xlii  INTRODUCTION. 

An  incident,  hitherto  unpubHshed,  will  illustrate 
this  trait. 

During  the  fall  of  1864  it  became  evident  that 
Pennsylvania  was  a  "  doubtful  State."  General  Mc- 
Clellan,  the  candidate  of  the  Democratic  party,  was 
not  only  popular  there  as  a  native  Pennsylvanian, 
but,  even  among  those  loyal  to  the  administration, 
he  had  a  strong  following  and  great  sympathy,  from 
the  belief  that  he  had  been  a  much  abused  man. 
Lincoln  was  advised  by  the  Republican  State  Com- 
mittee of  Pennsylvania  that  the  prospect  was  very 
uncertain.  It  was  felt  that,  on  the  result  in  the 
Keystone  State,  hinged  the  fate  of  the  national 
election.  A  gentleman  belonging  to  the  Republican 
Committee,  then,  as  now,  one  of  the  leading  poli- 
ticians of  the  State,  had  a  consultation  with  the 
President  on  the  situation.  He  thus  relates  the 
interview  : 

"  Mr.  President,"  I  said,  "  the  only  sure  way  to 
organize  victory  in  this  contest,  is  to  have  some 
fifteen  thousand,  or  more,  Pennsylvania  soldiers  fur- 
loughed  and  sent  home  to  vote.  While  their  votes 
in  the  field  would  count  man  for  man,  their  pres- 
ence at  the  polls  at  home  would  exert  an  influence 
not  easily  to  be  estimated,  by  exciting  enthusiasm 
and  building  up  party  morale.  I  would  advise  you 
to  send  a  private  message  to  General  Grant,  to  be 
given  in  an  unofficial  way,  asking  for  such  an  issu- 


INTRODUCTIOy.  xHii 

ance  of  furloughs  to  Pennsylvania  soldiers  in  the 
field." 

Lincoln  was  silent  for  some  moments  and  seemed 
to  be  pondering.      Then  he  answered  : 

"  I  have  never  had  any  intimation  from  General 
Grant  as  to  his  feeling  for  me.  I  don't  know  how 
far  he  would  be  disposed  to  be  my  friend  in  the 
matter,  nor  do  I  think  it  would  be  safe  to  trust 
him." 

The  President's  interlocutor  responded  with  some 
heat,  "  And  do  you  mean  to  say  that  the  man 
at  whose  back  you  stood,  in  defiance  of  the  clamor 
of  the  country,  for  whom  you  fought  through  thick 
and  thin,  would  not  stand  by  you  now  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  that  General  Grant  would  be  my 
friend  in  this  matter,"  reiterated  the  President. 

"  Then,  let  it  be  done  through  General  Meade, 
the  direct  commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac — 
and  General  Sheridan,  how  about  him  ?  " 

At  this  question,  Lincoln's  face"  grew  sunny  and 
briorht.  "I  can  trust  Phil,"  he  said;  "he's  all 
right ! " 

As  a  result  of  this  conference,  one  of  the  assist- 
ant secretaries  of  war  was  sent  to  Petersburg  with  a 
strictly  unofficial  message  to  General  Meade,  and 
another  agent  was  deputed  to  visit  General  Sher- 
idan. Some  10,000  or  more  Pennsylvania  soldiers 
went  home  to  vote  when  the  time  came,  and  Penn- 


xliv  IN  TROD  UC  TION. 

sylvania  was  carried  by  a  handsome  majority  for  the 
administration. 

If  statesmanship  is  a  practical  science,  to  be  tested 
by  the  touch-stone  of  enduring  success,  then  is  Lin- 
coln entitled  to  a  place  among  the  world's  great 
statesmen.  He  was  not  of  the  rulers  who  seek  only 
to  impress  their  own  will  on  the  nation.  He  was 
not  of  the  rulers  who  play  for  mere  place  in  the 
great  game  of  politics. 

As,  in  the  first  instance,  tyrants  are  the  selfish 
masters,  so,  in  the  other,  demagogues  are  the  selfish 
servants.  But,  above  them,  stand  the  men  who  have 
sought  power  to  hold  it  as  a  sacred  trust,  and  whose 
ambition  and  conduct  are  regulated  by  an  ardent 
purpose  to  serve  great  national  interests.  It  seems 
not  too  much  to  say  that  among  these  was  Lincoln. 

He  was  pre-eminently  a  democratic  ruler.  Pro- 
foundly believing  in  a  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people  and  for  the  people,  however  earnest 
his  wish,  as  a  man,  to  promote  and  enact  justice 
between  classes  and  races,  he  never  went  faster  nor 
further  than  to  enforce  the  will  of  the  people  that 
elected  him.  His  strength  as  a  President  lay  in  his 
deep  sympathy  with  the  people,  "  the  plain  folks," 
as  he  loved  to  call  them,  and  his  intuitive  knowl- 
edge of  all  their  thoughts  and  aims,  their  prejudices 
and  preferences,  equally  and  alike.  He  was  elected 
to    save   the    Union,    not   to   destroy    slavery ;    and 


IN  TROD  UC  TION.  xl  V 

he  did  not  aid,  directly  or  indirectly,  the  movement 
to  abolish  slavery,  until  the  voice  of  the  people 
was  heard  demanding  it  in  order  that  the  Union 
might  be  saved.  He  did  not  free  the  negro  for 
the  sake  of  the  slave,  but  for  the  sake  of  the 
Union.  It  is  an  error  to  class  him  with  the  noble 
band  of  abolitionists  to  whom  neither  Church 
nor  State  was  sacred  when  it  sheltered  slavery.  He 
signed  the  proclamation  of  emancipation  solely  be- 
cause it  had  become  impossible  to  restore  the  Union 
with  slavery. 

Like  the  nation  itself,  Lincoln,  although  personally 
opposed  to  slavery,  was  but  slowly  educated  into  the 
belief  that  no  republican  civilization  could  endure 
with  slavery  as  a  corner-stone,  or  even  as  one  of  the 
pillars,  of  the  Temple  of  Democracy.  He  believed 
that  the  spread  of  slavery  should  be  resisted  ;  for 
the  Constitution  did  not  contemplate  its  extension. 
He  believed  at  one  time  that  slavery  should  not  be 
interfered  with  in  the  States  that  sustained  it  ;  for 
the  Constitution,  in  fact,  although  not  in  words,  had 
recognized  its  legality.  It  was  not  until  slavery  or 
the  Union  must  be  sacrificed  that  he  became  the 
emancipator  of  the  negro  race  in  America. 

The  Constitution,  indeed,  was  the  fetich  of  the 
pre-rebellion  period  of  our  history,  and  it  com- 
manded the  loyal  worship  of  nearly  all  the  earlier 
statesmen  of  the  republic. 


xlvi  INTRODUCTION. 

It  was  not  until  the  Southern  poHticians,  growing 
more  and  more  arrogant,  passed,  with  the  aid  of 
their  Northern  alHes,  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  that 
the  conscience  of  the  North  made  itself  felt  as  a 
political  force ;  for,  hitherto,  it  had  been  satisfied 
with  moral  and  religious  protests,  or  with  silent 
lamentations  over  the  impossibility  of  abolishing 
slavery  under  the  Federal  Constitution. 

That  act  gave  the  death-blow  to  the  Whig  party. 
Out  of  its  ashes  arose  the  Republican  party,  which 
was  organized  solely  to  prevent  the  extension  of 
slavery  into  virgin  territory,  but  which  was  destined 
to  destroy  it  and  subsequently  to  enfranchise  the 
slaves  whom  it  had  emancipated. 

Yet  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  did  not  arouse  in 
Abraham  Lincoln  the  profound  indignation  that  he 
was  afterward  to  transmute  into  emancipation. 

The  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  by  some  oversight,  had 
omitted  the  District  of  Columbia  from  its  opera- 
tions. On  the  loth  of  January,  1849,  in  the  30th 
Congrress,  Abraham  Lincoln  offered  a  resolution  to 
extend  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  over  the  District  of 
Columbia ! 

It  was  for  this  act,  when  the  news  of  his  nomina- 
tion for  the  presidency  reached  Massachusetts,  that 
he  was  denounced  by  the  greatest  of  American  anti- 
slavery  orators,  Wendell  Phillips,  as  "  the  Slave 
Hound  of  Illinois." 


IN7R0DUCTI0iV.  xlvii 

This  proposition,  however,  was  not  presented  in 
what  might  otherwise  have  well  been  regarded  as  its 
naked  deformity.  It  was  part  of  a  bill,  offered  by 
the  obscure  congressman  from  Illinois,  to  provide  for 
the  gradual  extinction  of  slavery  in  the  District. 

As  this  incident  in  the  public  life  of  Lincoln  has 
been  but  slightly  noticed,  it  may  be  well  to  put  the 
entire  record  before  the  reader : 

"  January  8,  1849.  At  Second  Session,  30th  Con- 
gress, Mr.  Lincoln  voted  against  a  motion  to  suspend 
the  rules  and  take  up  the  following : 

''Resolved :  That  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary 
is  hereby  instructed  to  report  a  bill  to  the  House, 
providing  effectually  for  the  apprehension  and  de- 
livery of  fugitives  from  Iowa  who  have  escaped,  or 
who  may  escape,  from  one  State  into  another." 

''  yanuary  13,  1849.  ^^-  Lincoln  gave  notice  of 
a  motion  for  leave  to  introduce  a  bill  abolishing 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  by  consent  of 
the  free  white  people  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
with  compensation  to  owners. 

"  At  Second  Session,  30th  Congress,  January  10th, 
1849,  John  Wentworth,  of  Illinois,  introduced  the 
following : 

"  Whereas,  The  traffic  now  prosecuted  in  this 
metropolis    of    the    Republic    in    human    beings    as 


xlviii  introduction:    . 

chattels  is  contrary  to  natural  justice  and  the  fun- 
damental principles  of  our  political  system,  and  is 
notoriously  a  reproach  to  our  country  throughout 
Christendom,  and  a  serious  hinderance  to  the  prog- 
ress of  republican  liberty  among  the  nations  of  the 
earth  ;  therefore, 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Committee  for  the  District 
of  Columbia  be  instructed  to  report  a  bill,  as  soon 
as  practicable,  prohibiting  the  slave  trade  in  said 
District." 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  thereupon  read  an  amendment  which 
he  intended  to  offer,  if  he  could  obtain  the  oppor- 
tunity, as  follows  : 

"  That  the  Committee  on  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia be  instructed  to  report  a  bill  in  substance  as 
follows : 

"Sec.  I.  Be  it  e7iacted,  etc.,  That  no  person  not 
now  within  the  District  of  Columbia,  nor  now  owned 
by  any  person  or  persons  now  resident  within  it,  nor 
hereafter  born  within  it,  shall  ever  be  held  in  slaver)- 
within  said  District. 

"  Sec.  2.  That  no  person  now  within  said  District, 
or  now  owned  by  any  person  or  persons  now  resi- 
dent within  the  same,  or  hereafter  born  within  it, 
shall  ever  be  held  in  slavery  within  the  limits  of 
said  District. 

''Provided,   That   officers   of  the   Government   of 


INTRODUCTION.  xHx 

the  United  States,  beinor  citizens  of  the  slave-hold- 
ing  States,  coming  into  said  District  on  public  busi- 
ness, and  remaining  only  so  long  as  may  be  reason- 
ably necessary  for  that  object,  may  be  attended  into 
and  out  of  said  District,  and  while  there,  by  the 
necessary  servants  of  themselves  and  their  families, 
without  their  rights  to  hold  such  servants  in  service 
being  thereby  impaired. 

"Sec.  3.  That  all  children  born  of  slave  mothers 
within  said  District  on  or  after  the  first  day  of  Janu- 
ary, in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  fifty,  shall  be  free  ;  but  shall  be  rea- 
sonably supported  and  educated  by  the  respective 
owners  of  their  mothers,  or  by  their  heirs  or  repre- 
sentatives, and  shall  serve  reasonable  service  as  ap- 
prentices to  such  owners,  heirs  and  representatives, 
until  they  respectively  arrive  at  the  age  of  —  years, 
when  they  shall  be  entirely  free  ;  but  the  municipal 
authorities  of  Washinorton  and  Georcretown,  within 
their  respective  jurisdictional  limits,  are  hereby  em- 
powered and  required  to  make  all  suitable  and  nec- 
essary provisions  for  enforcing  obedience  to  this 
section,  on  the  part  of  both  masters  and  apprentices. 

"  Sec.  4.  I'hat  all  persons  now  within  said  District, 
lawfully  held  as  slaves,  or  now  owned  by  any  person 
or  persons  now  residents  within  said  District,  shall 
remain  such  at  the  will  of  their  respective  owners, 
their  heirs  and  legal  representatives  ; 


1  INTRODUCTION. 

^^Provided,  That  any  such  owner,  or  his  legal  repre- 
sentatives, may  at  any  time  receive  from  the  Treas- 
ury of  the  United  States  the  full  value  of  his  or  her 
slave  of  the  class  in  this  section  mentioned,  upon 
which  such  slave  shall  be  forthwith  and  forever  free. 

''And provided ftcrihcr,  That  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  shall  be  a  board  for  determin- 
ing the  value  of  such  slaves  as  their  owners  may 
desire  to  emancipate  under  this  section,  and  whose 
duty  it  shall  be  to  hold  a  session  for  such  purpose 
on  the  first  Monday  of  each  calendar  month,  to  re- 
ceive all  applications,  and,  on  satisfactory  evidence 
in  each  case  that  the  person  presented  for  valuation 
is  a  slave  and  of  the  class  in  this  section  mentioned, 
and  is  owned  by  the  applicant,  shall  value  such  slave 
at  his  or  her  full  cash  value,  and  give  to  the  appli- 
cant an  order  on  the  Treasury  for  the  amount,  and 
also  to  such  slave  a  certificate  of  freedom. 

"Sec.  5.  That  the  municipal  authorities  of  Wash- 
ington and  Georgetown,  within  their  respective  juris- 
dictional limits,  are  hereby  empowered  and  required 
to  provide  active  and  efficient  means  to  arrest  and 
deliver  up  to  their  owners  all  fugitive  slaves  escap- 
ing into  said  districts. 

"Sec.  6.  That  the  officers  of  elections  within  said 
District  of  Columbia  are  hereby  empowered  and  re- 
quired to  open  polls  at  all  the  usual  places  of  hold- 


INTRODUCTION.  X\ 

ing  elections  on  the  first  Monday  of  April  next, 
and  receive  the  vote  of  every  free  white  male  cit- 
izen above  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  having  re- 
sided within  said  District  for  the  period  of  one  year 
or  more  next  preceding  the  time  of  such  voting  for 
or  against  this  act,  to  proceed  in  taking  such  votes 
in  all  respects,  not  herein  specified,  as  at  elections 
under  the  municipal  laws,  and  with  as  little  delay 
as  possible  to  transmit  correct  statements  of  the 
votes  so  cast  to  the  President  of  the  United  States; 
and  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  President  to  canvass 
such  votes  immediately,  and  if  a  majority  of  them 
be  found  to  be  for  this  act.  to  forthwith  issue  his 
proclamation  giving  notice  of  the  fact ;  and  this  act 
shall  only  be  in  full  force  and  effect  on  and  after 
the  day  of  such  proclamation. 

"Sec.  7.  That  involuntary  servitude  for  the  pun- 
ishment of  crime  whereof  the  party  shall  have  been 
duly  convicted  shall  in  nowise  be  prohibited  by  this 
act, 

"  Sec.  8.  That  for  all  the  purposes  of  this  act,  the 
jurisdictional  limits  of  Washington  are  extended  to 
all  parts  of  the  District  of  Columbia  not  now  in- 
cluded within  the  present  limits  of  Georgetown." 

It  was  the  5th  section  of  this  bill  that  aroused 
Wendell  Phillips's  indignation.  Both  of  these  emi- 
nent men  lived  long  enough  to  honor  each  other's 


Hi  INTRODUCTION'. 

services  and  complement  each  other's  career — for, 
without  the  agitator,  the  emancipator  would  have 
had  no  public  opinion  to  support  him,  and,  without 
Mr.  Lincoln's  act,  Mr.  Phillips's  oratory  would  have 
remained  brilliant  rhetoric  only. 

Growing,  as  the  people  grew,  in  moral  conviction, 
sympathizing  with  them  and  aiming  only  to  do  their 
will,  Abraham  Lincoln  may  rightly  be  regarded  as 
a  model  democratic  statesman.  Thus  growing  and 
thus  acting,  his  official  measures  had  all  the  force  of  a 
resistless  fate.  What  he  achieved  endured,  because 
it  was  founded  on  the  rock  of  the  people's  will.  It 
has  been  the  destiny  of  many  illustrious  reformers 
to  outlive  the  reforms  for  which  they  zealously  strove, 
and  history  furnishes  innumerable  illustrations  of  the 
truth  that  reforms  not  based  on  public  opinion  rarely 
outlast  the  lifetime  of  their  champions.  What  eager 
idealists,  therefore,  decried  in  Lincoln — his  loyal 
deference  to  the  will  of  the  majority,  his  tardiness 
in  adopting  radical  measures,  and  his  reluctance  to 
advance  more  rapidly  than  the  "plain  folks" — 
time  has  shown  to  be  the  highest  wisdom  in  the 
ruler  of  a  democracy. 

Lincoln's  deep-rooted  faith  in  representative  de- 
mocracy was  strikingly  illustrated  in  his  first  public 
act — the  appointment  of  his  Cabinet.  Believing  in 
the  rightfulness  of  party  rule,  that  is  to  say,  in  the 
rule  of  the  majority,  instead  of  seeking  to  call  as  his 


INTRODUCTION.  \\\\ 

councillors  men  who  might  serve  his  personal  ends, 
he  selected  them  from  the  most  popular  of  his  rivals 
— men  who  had  competed  with  him  for  the  Presiden- 
tial nomination.  His  Cabinet  thus  represented  not 
only  every  division  of  his  party,  but  consisted  of 
those  whom  these  factions  regarded  as  their  ablest 
representatives.  It  was  a  Cabinet  of  "  all  the  talents  " 
and  all  the  popularities  ;  and  yet  among  these  vet- 
eran statesmen,  most  of  them  long-trained  and  skill- 
ful in  all  the  arts  of  statecraft,  Lincoln  was  acknowl- 
edged the  master  spirit.  This  Cabinet  numbered 
among  its  members  men  no  less  eminent  than  Sew- 
ard, Chase  and  Stanton. 

The  question  of  ascendency  in  the  Cabinet  during 
the  War  of  the  Rebellion  is  still  earnestly  discussed 
by  some.  The  names  of  Lincoln,  Seward  and  Stan- 
ton have  each  advocates  claiming  unquestioned  pre- 
eminence for  one  or  the  other  of  these  great  states- 
men. Some,  with  greater  zeal  and  fidelity  than 
knowledge  or  justice,  have  sought  to  exalt  the 
great  Secretary  of  State  or  the  great  Secretary  of 
War  at  the  expense  of  the  great  War  President. 
Surely  no  labor  of  love  could  be  more  futile.  For 
history  will  place  all  of  these  illustrious  Americans 
on  the  most  honored  pedestals  in  the  nation's  pan- 
theon, and  will  add  that  each  of  them  supplemented, 
not  overshadowed,  his  associates.  Yet  no  one  who 
was  familiar  with  the  secrets  of  the  administration 


liv  .  INTRODUCTION. 

could  well  doubt  that  in  all  critical  issues  the  uncouth 
Western  statesman,  unused  to  power,  asserted  and 
maintained  his  inherent  as  well  as  his  official  suprem- 
acy. His  common  sense,  his  unselfish  purpose,  his 
keen  perceptions,  his  unostentatious  manners,  his 
mental  ubiquity,  and  his  insight  into  men,  soon  made 
him  as  pre-eminent  and  as  powerful  with  the  leaders 
of  the  people  as  he  had  always  been  with  the  people 
themselves. 

Stanton's  iron  will  was  felt  at  every  important 
epoch  of  the  war,  but  when  his  idea  of  policy  con- 
flicted with  the  purpose  of  his  chief,  the  great  War 
Minister  was  forced  to  yield.  Seward,  perhaps  the 
ablest  American  diplomatist  of  the  century,  found 
also  in  the  man  of  the  people  a  master  who  knew 
when  to  exact  implicit  obedience.  This  fact  is  dem- 
onstrated by  the  State  document  herewith  repro- 
duced m  facsimile  "^^ — the  dispatch  conveying  to  Mr. 
Adams,  our  Minister  at  the  Court  of  St.  James's, 
Mr.  Seward's  first  full  instructions  after  the  outbreak 
of  the  Rebellion.  It  was  corrected  by  the  Presi- 
dent, as  will  now  be  seen,  in  words  that  testify  to 
his  statesmanship,  as,  without  question,  they  saved 
the  nation  from  a  war  with  England,  which,  at  that 
period,  would  probably  have  resulted  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Southern  Confederacy. 

*  This  facsimile,  originally  designed  by  me  for  this  volume,  was,  for  urgent 
reasons,  unnecessary  here  to  state,  first  published  in  the  issue  of  the  North 
American  Review  for  April,  1886. 


INTRODUCTION.  Iv 

Lincoln,  then,  had  been  President  for  only  three 
months.  Certainly,  when  he  came  to  the  office,  the 
farthest  thing  from  the  thought  of  the  people  was  to 
credit  him  with  diplomatic  knowledge  or  skill.  But 
this  paper,  by  its  erasures,  its  substitutions  and  its 
amendments,  shows  a  nice  sense  of  the  shades  of 
meaning  in  words,  a  comprehensive  knowledge  of 
the  situation,  and  a  thorough  appreciation  of  the 
grave  results  which  might  follow  the  use  of  terms 
that  he  either  modified  or  erased.  These  correc- 
tions of  Mr.  Seward's  dispatch,  by  the  "rail-splitter" 
of  Illinois,  form  a  most  interesting  addition  to  the 
history  of  Lincoln,  and  to  that  of  our  diplomacy. 

The  paper  is  one  that  needs  few  comments  to 
bring  its  remarkable  character  before  the  reader. 
The  burdens  of  home  affairs,  which  then  lay  heavily 
on  the  new  President,  will  readily  recur  to  every 
student  of  our  history.  The  countless  demands 
upon  his  time  gave  little  opportunity  for  reflection. 
Prompt  action  was  required  in  all  directions  and  in 
everything,  small  and  great.  But,  as  his  handiwork 
shows,  he  turned  with  perfect  composure  from  the 
home  to  the  equally  threatening  foreign  field,  and 
revised,  with  a  master-hand,  the  most  important  dis- 
patch that  had  as  yet  been  prepared  by  .Mr.  Seward. 
The  work  shows  a  freedom,  an  insight  into  foreign 
affairs,  a  skill  in  the  use  of  language,  a  delicacy  of 
criticism  and  a  discrimination  in  methods  of  diplo- 


Ivi  INTRODUCTION. 

matic    dealino-  which  entitle    the    President    to    the 
honors  of  an  astute  statesman. 

The  opening  of  the  dispatch  is  Mr.  Seward's  first 
draft  as  corrected  by  himself.     The   President's  re- 
vision  begins    with   the   direction   to   leave   out   the 
paragraph,  "We  intend  to  have  a  clear  and  simple 
record  of  whatever  issue   may  arise  between  us  and 
Great   Britain."     He  seemed    to  see   no   reason  for 
harshly  reproving  Mr.  Dallas  ;    and  so  he  modified 
the    expression,    "  The    President    is    surprised    and 
grieved,"  to  the  President  "  regrets."     With  the  mul- 
tiplicity of  facts  crowding   his  mind,  he  yet  did   not 
forget  that  no  explanations  had  been  demanded  of 
Great    Britain  ;    and    so   he    wrote    in    the    margin  : 
"  Leave  out,  because  it  does  not  appear  that  such 
explanations  were  demanded."     He  did  not  care  to 
reflect  upon  the  body  of  our  representatives  abroad, 
and  therefore  he   struck  out   the   sentence   on   that 
subject,  which  is  marked.      He  crossed  out  "wrong- 
ful" and  wrote  "hurtful,"  showing  a  knowledge  of 
the  exact  value  of  words  worthy  of   a  Trench.      A 
wrongful  act  implies  intention  to  harm,  but  in  the 
word  "  hurtful "  the  charge  of  intent   is  not  found. 
In  the  unsettled  condition  of  the  question  of  recog- 
nizing the  Southern  Confederacy,  he  did  not  deem 
it  best  to  threaten  ;  and  so,  instead  of  "  No  one  of 
these    proceedings    will    be    bo7nie    by    the    United 
States,"  he  first  substituted  "will   pass   unnoticed," 


INTRODUCTION.  Ivii 

for  "  borne,"  and  then,  strengthening  his  own  ex- 
pression somewhat,  he  finally  wrote  "will  pass  un- 
questioned." 

In  discussing  the  question  of  privateers,  Lincoln 
wrote  "Omit"  opposite  another  threat  in  the  ex- 
pression, '•  the  laws  of  nations  afford  an  adequate 
and  proper  remedy,  and  we  shall  avail  ourselves  of 
it."  This  last  clause  he  struck  out.  An  examination 
of  the  facsimile  will  at  once  disclose  the  nature  of 
the  more  extensive  changes  that  were  made.  The 
close  of  the  letter  exhibits  further  examples  of  minor 
corrections  which  are  of  exceeding  interest.  The 
changes  in  one  sentence  are  especially  noteworthy. 
"If  that  nation  will  now  repeat  the  same  great 
crime,"  wrote  Mr.  Seward.  "  If  that  nation  shall 
now  repeat  the  same  great  ^rr^r,"  amended  Lincoln. 
"Social  calamities''  he  changed  to  "social  conviil- 
sions,"  as  if  he  had  in  mind  that,  in  the  end,  the  re- 
sults might  not  prove  calamitous,  however  great 
the  convulsions.  The  paper  will  bear  long  study, 
and  no  one  can  examine  it  without  acquiring  a  new 
and  more  exalted  estimate  of  Lincoln's  many-sided 
powers. 

Frequent  efforts  have  been  made  to  obtain  a  copy 
of  the  draft  here  published,  but,  even  when  backed 
by  the  authority  of  Congress,  they  have  failed  in 
securing  it. 

In  the  Forty-fourth  Congress,  first  session,  in  the 


Iviii  INTRODUCTION. 

Senate,  on  Tuesday,  June  6,  1876,  Senator  Boutwell 
offered,  for  present  consideration,  this  resolution,  to 
which  he  said  he  supposed  there  would  be  no  objec- 
tion : 

"-Resolved,  That  the  President  be  requested,  if  not 
in  his  opinion  inconsistent  with  the  public  interests, 
to  furnish  the  Senate  with  a  fac-simile  copy  of  the 
original  draft  of  the  letter  of  the  Secretary  of  State 
to  the  Minister  of  the  United  States,  at  the  Court 
of  St.  James's,  in  May,  1861,  in  relation  to  the  proc- 
lamation of  Her  Majesty,  the  Queen  of  Great 
Britain,  recognizing  the  belligerent  character  of  the 
Confederate  States." 

There  being  now  no  valid  objection  to  its  publicity, 
I  have  availed  myself  of  an  opportunity  of  giving 
to  the  public  the  draft  of  this  famous  diplomatic 
dispatch  ;  and,  in  order  to  make  the  comparison  less 
difificult,  the  dispatch  also  is  given  in  full,  as  printed 
in  the  of^cial  correspondence,  page  by  page,  with 
notes  of  the  corrections  made  in  the  draft  as  ad- 
denda to  each  page. 

Of  the  value  of  this  volume  I  may  speak  without 
vanity,  as  my  function  has  been  that  of  collector 
only.  The  contributors  took  an  earnest  and  gener- 
ally a  conspicuous  part,  each  in  his  own  field,  in  the 
great  American  struggle  for  nationality  and  free- 
dom. I  have  not  sought  to  eliminate  statements 
with  which  I  disagree,  nor  to  prevent  the  occasional 


introduction:  \ 


IX 


conflict  of  testimony  which  results  from  that  inhe- 
rent faUibiHty  of  human  evidence  that  sometimes 
troubles,  however  slightly,  even  the  highest  sources 
of  authority.  Each  writer  reports  what  he  himself 
believes,  or  saw,  or  heard,  and  stands  sponsor  for  his 
own  contribution  to  these  interestinof  memoirs. 

It  has  been  necessary  to  postpone  the  publication 
of  many  essays  as  interesting  and  as  valuable  as 
those  embraced  in  this  collection  ;  for,  in  my  desire 
to  secure  the  testimony  of  every  eminent  associate 
of  Lincoln,  I  endeavored  to  leave  no  prominent 
American  of  the  war  period  uninformed  of  the  work 
in  progress.  These  additional  essays  will  appear  at 
a  later  day. 

The  public,  I  venture  to  believe,  will  look  with 
sincere  satisfaction  upon  the  result  obtained  through 
the  prompt  and  able  co-operation  of  the  distin- 
guished contributors  to  these  reminiscences.  For 
the  time  is  fast  coming  when  we  shall  seek  in  vain 
for  survivors  of  the  dark  days  that  fashioned  the  ca- 
reer of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Already,  within  the  brief 
period  of  one  year,  death  has  stricken  many  names 
from  the  list — among  them  the  historic  ones  of 
Grant,  McClellan,  Hancock,  and  McDowell.  Yet 
a  little  while,  and  few  witnesses  will  remain  to  tell 
the  tale.  And  coming  generations  will  remember 
with  tenderness  the  recorded  words  of  the  ereat- 
hearted    statesman    to    whom    every  sorrow   of    the 


Ix  INTRODUCTION. 

nation  was  more  than  sorrow  of  his  own.  They 
will  dwell  fondly  upon  his  pathetic  simplicity,  and 
with  pride  upon  his  rare  and  splendid  gifts.  With 
peculiar  affection  they  will  recall  his  every  utter- 
ance, grave  or  humorous.  They  will  recollect  with 
gratitude  the  devoted  patriotism  which  guided  him 
through  all,  and  they  will  remember  with  keen  sor- 
row the  calamity  of  his  tragic  end. 

Allen  Thorndike  Rice. 


THE    DISPATCH    AS    PRINTED. 

No.  lo.]  Department  of  State, 

Washington,  Alay  21,  1861. 

Sir:  This  Government  considers  that  our  relations 
in  Europe  have  reached  a  crisis  in  which  it  is  neces- 
sary for  it  to  take  a  decided  stand,  on  which  not 
only  its  immediate  measures  but  its  ultimate  and 
permanent  policy  can  be  determined  and  defined. 
At  the  same  time  it  neither  means  to  menace  Great 
Britain  nor  to  wound  the  susceptibilities  of  that  or 
any  other  European  nation.  That  policy  is  devel- 
oped in  this  paper. 

The  paper  itself  is  not  to  be  read  or  shown  to  the 
British  Secretary  of  State,  nor  are  any  of  its  posi- 
tions to  be  prematurely,  unnecessarily,  or  indiscreetly 
made  known.  But  its  spirit  will  be  your  guide.  You 
will  keep  back  nothing  when  the  time  arrives  for  its 
being  said  with  dignity,  propriety,  and  effect,  and  you 
will  all  the  while  be  careful  to  say  nothing  that  will 
be  inconeruous  or  inconsistent  with  the  views  which 
it  contains.  \Scc  Page  i  of  fac-smiile  copy. 


nv  TROD  UC  TIOiV.  \ 


XI 


Mr.  Dallas  In  a  brief  dispatch  of  May  2  (No.  ^fZZ)' 
tells  us  that  Lord  John  Russell  recently  requested 
an  interview  with  him  on  account  of  the  solicitude 
which  his  lordship  felt  concerning  the  effect  of  cer- 
tain measures  represented  as  likely  to  be  adopted  by 
the  President.  In  that  conversation  the  British  Sec- 
retary told  Mr.  Dallas  that  the  three  representatives 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy  were  then  in  London, 
that  Lord  John  Russell  had  not  yet  seen  them,  but 
that  he  was  not  unwilling  to  see  them,  unofficially. 
He  farther  informed  Mr.  Dallas  that  an  understand- 
ing exists  between  the  British  and  French  Govern- 
ments which  would  lead  both  to  take  one  and  the 
same  course  as  to  recognition.  His  lordship  then 
referred  to  [^^^'^  2. 

the  rumor  of  a  meditated  blockade  by  us  of  Southern 
ports,  and  a  discontinuance  of  them  as  ports  of  entry. 
Mr.  Dallas  answered  that  he  knew  nothing  on  those 
topics,  and  therefore  could  say  nothing.  He  added 
that  you  were  expected  to  arrive  in  two  weeks. 
Upon  this  statement  Lord  John  Russell  acquiesced 
in  the  expediency  of  waiting  for  the  full  knowl- 
edge you  were  expected  to  bring. 

Mr.  Dallas  transmitted  to  us  some  newspaper 
reports  of  ministerial  explanations  made  in  Parlia- 
ment. 

You  will  base  no  proceedings  on  parliamentary 
debates  farther  than  to  seek  explanations  when 
necessary  and  communicate  them  to  this  department. 

The  President  regrets  [_-P<^g(^  3- 

On  this  page,  after  the  word  department,  the  Presi- 
dent drew  a  line  around  the  sentence  "  We  intend  to 
have  a  clear  and  simple  record  of  whatever  issue  may 
arise  between  us  and  Great  Britain,"  and  wrote  the 


Ixii  INTRODUCTION. 

words  "  Leave  out."  He  also  similarly  encircled  the 
words  "  is  surprised  and  grieved,"  and  rendered  the 
phrase  "The  President  regrets." 

that  Mr.  Dallas  did  not  protest  against  the  proposed 
unofficial  intercourse  between  the  British  Govern- 
ment and  the  missionaries  of  the  insurgents. 

It  is  due,  however,  to  Mr.  Dallas  to  say,  that  our 
instructions  had  been  given  only  to  you  and  not  to 
him,  and  that  his  loyalty  and  fidelity,  too  rare  in  these 
times,  are  appreciated. 

Intercourse  of  any  kind  with  the  so-called  commis- 
sioners is  liable  to  be  construed  as  a  recognition  of 
the  authority  which  appointed  them.  Such  inter- 
course would  be  none  the  less  hurtful  to  us  for  being 
called  unofficial,  and  it  might  be  even  more  injurious, 
because  we  should  have  no  means  of  knowing  what 
points  might  be  resolved  by  it.      Moreover, 

{Page  4. 

After  the  phrase  "  missionaries  of  the  insurgents  " 
the  Secretary  had  added,  "as  well  as  against  the 
demand  for  explanations  made  by  the  British  Govern- 
ment ;"  but  the  President  wrote  "  Leave  out,  because 
it  does  not  appear  that  explanations  were  demanded." 

As  the  Secretary  wrote  the  second  sentence,  it 
read  :  "  It  is  due,  however,  to  Mr.  Dallas  to  say 
that  our  instructions  had  been  given  only  to  you, 
not  to  him,  and  that  his  loyalty  and  fidelity,  too  rare 
in  these  times  among  our  representatives  abroad,  are 
confessed  and  appreciated."  The  President  wrote 
"  Leave  out"  against  the  words  italicized. 


INTRODUCTION.  Ixili 

In  the  last  complete  sentence  on  this  page,  also, 
the  President  substituted  the  word  "  hurtful "  for 
"  wrongful. " 

unofficial  intercourse  is  useless  and  meaningless  if 
it  is  not  expected  to  ripen  into  official  intercourse 
and  direct  recognition.  It  is  left  doubtful,  here, 
whether  the  proposed  unofficial  intercourse  has  yet 
actually  begun.  Your  own  antecedent  instructions 
are  deemed  explicit  enough  and  it  is  hoped  that  you 
have  not  misunderstood  them.  You  will,  in  any 
event,  desist  from  all  intercourse  whatever,  unofficial 
as  well  as  official,  with  the  British  Government,  so 
lonof  as  it  shall  continue  intercourse  of  either  kind 
with  the  domestic  enemies  of  this  country. 

When  intercourse  shall  have  been  arrested  for  this 
cause,  you  will  communicate  with  this  department 
and  receive  further  directions.  XJP^S^  5- 

After  the  words  "  domestic  enemies  of  this  coun- 
try" the  Secretary  had  added  "confining  yourself 
simply  to  a  delivery  of  a  copy  of  this  paper  to  the 
Secretary  of  State."  "  Leave  out,"  wrote  the  Presi- 
dent. 

"  After  doing  this,  you  will  communicate  with 
this  department,"  was  the  language  of  Mr.  Seward. 
"  When  communication  shall  have  been  arrested  for 
this  cause,  you  will  communicate  with  this  depart- 
ment," was  the  President's  emendation. 

Lord  John  Russell  has  informed  us  of  an  under- 
standing between  the  British  and  French  Govern- 


Ixiv  INTRODUCTION. 

ments  that  they  will  act  together  In  regard  to  our 
affairs.  This  communication,  however,  loses  some- 
thinCT  of  its  value  from  the  circumstance  that  the 
communication  was  withheld  until  after  knowledge 
of  the  fact  had  been  acquired  by  us  from  other 
sources.  We  know,  also,  another  fact  that  has  not 
yet  been  officially  communicated  to  us,  namely,  that 
other  European  States  are  apprised  by  France  and 
England  of  their  agreement,  and  are  expected  to  con- 
cur with  or  follow  them  in  whatever  measures  they 
adopt  on  the  subject  of  recognition.  The  United 
States  have  been  impartial  and  just  in  all  their  con- 
duct towards  the  several  nations  of  Europe.  They 
will  not  complain,  however,  of  the  combination  now 
announced  by  the  two  leading  powers,  although  they 
think  they  had  a  right  to  expect  a  more  independent 
if  not  a  more  {P^S^  6. 

friendly  course  from  each  of  them.  You  will  take 
no  notice  of  that  or  any  other  alliance.  Whenever 
the  European  governments  shall  see  fit  to  commu- 
nicate directly  with  us,  we  shall  be,  as  heretofore, 
frank  and  explicit  in  our  reply. 

As  to  the  blockade,  you  will  say  that,  by  our  own 
laws,  and  the  laws  of  nations,  this  Government  has  a 
clear  right  to  suppress  insurrection.  An  exclusion 
of  commerce  from  national  ports,  which  have  been 
seized  by  the  insurgents,  in  the  equitable  form  of 
blockade,  is  a  proper  means  to  that  end.  You  will 
not  insist  that  our  blockade  is  to  be  respected  if  it 
be  not  maintained  by  a  competent  force,  but  passing 
by  that  question  as  not  now  a  practical,  or  at  least 
an  urgent  one,  you  will  add  that  the  blockade  is  now 
and  it  will  continue  to  be  so  maintained,  and  there- 
fore we  expect  it  to  be  respected  by  Great  Britain. 
You  will  add  that  we  have. 

\^Page  7. 


INTRODUCTION.  Ixv 

"As  to  the  blockade,"  wrote  the  Secretary,  "you 
will  say  that,  by  the  laws  of  nature  and  the  laws  of 
nations,  this  Government  has  a  clear  right  to  sup- 
press insurrections."  For  the  phrase  "  the  laws  of 
nature,"  the  President  wrote  "  our  own  laws." 

already  revoked  the  exequatur  of  a  Russian  consul 
who  had  enlisted  in  the  military  service  of  the  insur- 
gents, and  we  shall  dismiss  or  demand  the  recall  of 
every  foreign  agent,  consular  or  diplomatic,  who 
shall  either  disobey  the  Federal  laws  or  disown  the 
Federal  authority. 

As  to  the  recognition  of  the  so-called  Southern 
Confederacy  it  is  not  to  be  made  a  subject  of  tech- 
nical definition.  It  is,  of  course,  direct  recognition 
to  publish  an  acknowledgment  of  the  sovereignty 
and  independence  of  a  new  power.  It  is  direct 
recognition  to  receive  its  ambassadors,  ministers, 
agents,  or  commissioners  officially.  A  concession  of 
belligerent  rights  is  liable  to  be  construed  as  a  recog- 
nition of  them.  No  one  of  these  proceedings  will 
pass  unquestioned  by  the  United  States  in  this  case. 

Hitherto  recognition  has  been  moved  only  on  the 
assumption  that  the  so-called  Confederate  States  are 
de  facto  a  self-sustaining  power.  Now,  after  long 
forbearance,  designed  to  soothe  discontent  and  avert 
the  need  of  civil  war,  \_^^^^  8. 

"  No  one  of  these  proceedings,"  wrote  the  Secre- 
tary, "will  be  borne  by  the  United  States  in  this 
case."  The  President  first  substituted  "unnoticed" 
for  "borne,"  and  then  corrected  his  own  word  by 
writing  "will  pass  unquestioned." 


Ixvi  INTRODUCTION. 

the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  United  States  have 
been  put  in  motion  to  repress  the  insurrection.  The 
true  character  of  the  pretended  new  State  is  at  once 
revealed.  It  is  seen  to  be  a  power  existing  in  pro- 
nunciamento  only.  It  has  never  won  a  field.  It 
has  obtained  no  forts  that  were  not  virtually  betrayed 
into  its  hands  or  seized  in  breach  of  trust.  It  com- 
mands not  a  single  port  on  the  coast  nor  any  high- 
way out  from  its  pretended  Capital  by  land.  Under 
these  circumstances,  Great  Britain  is  called  upon  to 
intervene  and  give  it  body  and  independence  by  resist- 
ing our  measures  of  suppression.  British  recogni- 
tion would  be  British  inter-  \_P(^g^  9- 


ventlon  to  create,  within  our  territory,  a  hostile 
State  by  overthrowing  this  Republic  itself.  *  *  * 
As  to  the  treatment  of  privateers  in  the  insurgent 
service  you  will  say  that  this  is  a  question  exclusively 
our  own.  We  treat  them  as  pirates.  They  are  our 
own  citizens,  or  persons  employed  by  our  citizens, 
preying  on  the  commerce  of  our  country.  If  Great 
Britain  shall  choose  to  recognize  them  as  lawful  bel- . 
ligerents,  and  give  them  shelter  from  our  pursuit  and 
punishment,  the  laws  of  nations  afford  an  adequate 
and  proper  remedy.  \P'^S^  lO- 

After  the  words  "  overthrowing  this  Republic 
itself,"  Mr.  Seward  added  this  sentence,  which  Lin- 
coln eliminated  :  "  When  this  act  of  intervention 
is  distinctly  performed,  we,  from  that  hour,  shall 
cease  to  be  friends,  and  {become  once  more  as  we 
have  twice  befoi^e  beeit),  be  forced  to  be  enemies 
of  Great  Britain."  Here  the  President  seems  at 
first  to  have  decided  to  strike  out  only  the  words 


INTRODUCTION.  Ixvii 

that  are  italicized,  but   subsequently  he  erased  the 
entire  sentence. 

After  the  last  sentence  on  the  page,  following  the 
words  "proper  remedy,"  the  Secretary  had  written 
"  and  we  shall  avail  ourselves  of  it.  And  while  you 
need  not  say  this  in  advance,  be  sure  that  you  say 
nothing  inconsistent  with  it."  "  Old''  wrote  the 
President. 

Happily,  however,  her  Britannic  Majesty's  Gov- 
ernment can  avoid  all  these  difficulties.  It  invited 
us,  in  1856,  to  accede  to  the  declaration  of  the  Con- 
gress of  Paris,  of  which  body  Great  Britain  was 
herself  a  member,  abolishing  privateering  every- 
where, in  all  cases  and  forever.  You  already  have 
our  authority  to  propose  to  her  our  accession  to 
that  declaration.  If  she  refuse  to  receive  it,  it  can 
only  be  because  she  is  willing  to  become  the  patron 
of  privateering  when  aimed  at  our  devastation. 

These  positions  are  not  elaborately  defended  now, 
because  to  vindicate  them  would  imply  a  possibility 
of  our  waiving  them.     *     *     * 

We  are  not  insensible  of  the  grave  importance  of 
this  occasion.  We  see  how,  upon  the  result  of  the 
debate  in  which  we  are  engaged,  a  war  may 

\Page  1 1. 

After  the  second  paragraph  on  this  page  the  Pres- 
ident wrote  :  *'  Drop  all  from  this  line  to  the  end. 
and  in  lieu  of  it  write  '  This  paper  is  for  your  own 
guidance  only,  and  not  to  be  read  or  shown  to  any 
one.'  " 


Ixviii  INTRODUCTION. 

ensue  between  the  United  States  and  one,  two,  or 
even  more,  European  nations.  War  in  any  case  is  as 
exceptionable  from  the  habits,  as  it  is  revolting  from 
the  sentiments,  of  the  American  people.  But  if  it 
come,  it  will  be  fully  seen  that  it  results  from  the 
action  of  Great  Britain,  not  our  own  ;  that  Great 
Britain  will  have  decided  to  fraternize  with  our 
domestic  enemy  either  without  waiting  to  hear,  from 
you,  our  remonstrances  and  our  warnings,  or  after 
having  heard  them.  War  in  defence  of  national  life 
is  not  immoral,  and  war  in  defence  of  independence 
is  an  inevitable  part  of  the  discipline  of  nations. 

The  dispute  will  be  between  the  European  and 
the  American  branches  of  the  British  race.  All 
who  belong  to  that  race  will  especially  deprecate  it, 
as  they  ought.  It  may  well  be  believed  that  men 
of  every  race  and  kindred  will  deplore  it.  A  war  not 
unlike  it,  between  the  same  parties,  occurred  at  the 
close  of  the  last  century.  Europe  atoned  by  forty 
years  of  suffering  for  the  error  that  Great  Britain 
committed  in  provoking  that  contest.  \f''^S^  ^^' 

For  our  "  remonstrances  and  wrongs,"  on  this 
page,  the  President  substituted  "our  remonstrances 
and  our  warnings." 

"  Europe  atoned  by  forty  years  of  suffering  for 
the  crime,"  wrote  Mr.  Seward  ;  "  forty  years  of  suf- 
fering for  the  error,"  wrote  Lincoln. 

If  that  nation  shall  now  repeat  the  same  great  error, 
the  social  convulsions  which  will  follow  may  not  be 
so  long,  but  they  will  be  more  general.  When  they 
shall  have  ceased  it  will,  we  think,  be  seen,  what- 
ever may  have  been  the  fortunes  of  other  nations, 
that  it  is  not  the  United  States  that  will  have  come 


INTRODUCTION.  1 


XIX 


out  of  them  with  its  precious  constitution  altered, 
or  its  honestly  obtained  dominion  in  any  way 
abridged.  Great  Britain  has  but  to  wait  a  few 
months  and  all  her  present  inconveniences  will  cease 
with  all  our  own  troubles.  If  she  take  a  different 
course,  she  will  calculate  for  herself  the  ultimate  as 
well  as  the  immediate  consequences,  and  will  con- 
sider what  position  she  will  hold  when  she  shall  have 
forever  lost  the  sympathies  and  the  affections  of  the 
only  nation  on  whose  sympathies  and  affections  she 
has  a  natural  claim.  In  making  that  calculation, 
she  will  do  well  to  remember  that,  in  the  contro- 
versy she  proposes  to  open,  we  shall  be  actuated  by 
neither  pride,  nor  passion,  nor  cupidity,  nor  am- 
bition, but  we  shall  stand  simply  on  the  principle 
of  self-preservation,  and  that  our  cause  will  involve 
the  independence  of  nations,  and  the  rights  of  human 
nature. 

I  am,  sir,  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

William  H.  Seward. 

Charles  Francis  Adams,  Esq.,  &c.,  &c.,  &c. 

{Page  13. 

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Lieut.-General. 


I. 

Ulysses  S.  Grant. 

New  York,  Oct.  26,  1885. 
Dear  Sir  : 

In  the  first  draft  of  his  book,  Gen.  Grant  had  fixed 
upon  quite  a  large  number  of  anecdotes  which  were 
afterward  omitted.  Among  the  number  I  find  the 
following,  for  which,  as  will  be  seen,  he  was  indebted 
to  President  Lincoln. 

Respectfully, 

F.  D.  GRANT. 
Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  Esq. 


JUST  after  receiving  my  commission  as  lieu- 
tenant-general, the  President  called  me  aside 
to  speak  to  me  privately.  After  a  brief  reference 
to  the  military  situation,  he  said  he  thought  he  could 
illustrate  what  he  wanted  to  say  by  a  story,  which 
he  related  as  follows :  "  At  one  time  there  was  a 
great  war  among  the  animals,  and  one  side  had  great 
difficulty  in  getting  a  commander  who  had  sufficient 


2  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

confidence  In  himself.  Finally,  they  found  a  monkey, 
by  the  name  of  Jocko,  who  said  that  he  thought 
he  could  command  their  army  if  his  tail  could  be 
made  a  little  longer.  So  they  got  more  tail  and 
spliced  it  on  to  his  caudal  appendage.  He  looked 
at  it  admiringly,  and  then  thought  he  ought  to  have 
a  little  more  still.  This  was  added,  and  again  he 
called  for  more.  The  splicing  process  was  repeated 
many  times,  until  they  had  coiled  Jocko's  tail  around 
the  room,  filling  all  the  space.  Still  he  called  for 
more  tail,  and,  there  being  no  other  place  to  coil 
it,  they  began  wrapping  it  around  his  shoulders.  He 
continued  his  call  for  more,  and  they  kept  on  wind- 
ing the  additional  tail  about  him  until  its  weight 
broke  him  down." 

I  saw  the  point,  and,  rising  from  my  chair,  re- 
plied :  "  Mr.  President,  I  will  not  call  for  more  as- 
sistance unless  I  find  it  impossible  to  do  with  what 
I  already  have." 

II. 

Upon  one  occasion,  when  the  President  was  at  my 
head-quarters  at  City  Point,  I  took  him  to  see  the 
work  that  had  been  done  on  the  Dutch  Gap  Canal. 
After  taking  him  around  and  showing  him  all  the 
points  of  interest,  explaining  how,  in  blowing  up  one 
portion  of  the  work  that  was  being  excavated,  the 
explosion  had  thrown  the   material   back   into,  and 


£V    ULYSSES  S.    GRANT.  3 

filled  up,  a  part  already  completed,  he  turned  to  me 
and  said  :  "  Grant,  do  you  know  what  this  reminds 
me  of?     Out    in    Springfield,    Illinois,    there  was   a 

blacksmith  named  .     One  day,  when  he  did  not 

have  much  to  do,  he  took  a  piece  of  soft  iron  that 
had  been  in  his  shop  for  some  time,  and  for  which  he 
had  no  special  use,  and,  starting  up  his  fire,  began  to 
heat  it.  When  he  got  it  hot  he  carried  it  to  the  anvil 
and  beofan  to  hammer  it,  rather  thinkino;  he  would 
weld  it  into  an  agricultural  implement.  He  pounded 
away  for  some  time  until  he  got  it  fashioned  into 
some  shape,  when  he  discovered  that  the  iron  would 
not  hold  out  to  complete  the  implement  he  had  in 
mind.  He  then  put  it  back  into  the  forge,  heated  it 
up  again,  and  recommenced  hammering,  with  an  ill- 
defined  notion  that  he  would  make  a  claw  hammer, 
but  after  a  time  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
was  more  iron  there  than  was  needed  to  form  a 
hammer.  Again  he  heated  it,  and  thought  he  would 
make  an  axe.  After  hammering  and  welding  it  into 
shape,  knocking  the  oxydized  iron  off  in  flakes,  he 
concluded  there  was  not  enough  of  the  iron  left  to 
make  an  axe  that  would  be  of  any  use.  He  was  now 
getting  tired  and  a  little  disgusted  at  the  result  of 
his  various  essays.  So  he  filled  his  forge  full  of  coal, 
and,  after  placing  the  iron  in  the  center  of  the  heap, 
took  the  bellows  and  worked  up  a  tremendous  blast, 
bringing  the  iron  to  a  white  heat.     Then  with  his 


4  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tongs  he  lifted  it  from  the  bed  of  coals,  and  thrust- 
ing it  into  a  tub  of  water  near  by,  exclaimed  with  an 
oath,  '  Well,  if  I  can't  make  anything  else  of  you,  I 
will  make  a  fizzle,  anyhow.' " 

I  replied  that  I  was  afraid  that  was  about  what 
we  had  done  with  the  Dutch  Gap  Canal. 

ULYSSES  S.  GRANT. 


II. 

Elihu  B.  Washburne. 

MR.  LINCOLN  was  nearly  eight  years  my 
senior,  and  settled  in  Illinois  ten  years  before 
I  did.  We  first  find  him  in  the  State  splitting  rails 
with  Thomas  Hanks,  in  Macon  County,  in  1830.  Not 
long  afterward  he  made  his  way  to  New  Salem,  an 
unimportant  and  insignificant  village  on  the  Sanga- 
mon River,  in  the  northern  part  of  Sangamon 
County,  fourteen  miles  from  Springfield.  In  1839 
a  new  county  was  laid  off,  named  "  Menard,"  in  honor 
of  the  first  lieutenant-governor  of  the  State,  a  French 
Canadian,  an  early  settler  of  the  State  and  a  man 
whose  memory  is  held  in  reverence  by  the  people  of 
Illinois,  for  his  enterprise,  benevolence  and  the  ad- 
mirable personal  traits  which  adorned  his  character. 
A  distinguished  and  wealthy  citizen  of  St.  Louis, 
allied  to  him  by  marriage,  Mr.  Charles  Pierre  Chou- 
teau, is  now  erecting  a  monument  to  him,  to  be 
placed  in  the  State-house  grounds  at  Springfield. 
The  settlement  of  New  Salem,  now  immortalized 
as  the  early  home  of  Lincoln,  fell  within  the  new 
county  of  "  Menard."     Remaining  there  "as   a  sort 


6  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  clerk  in  a  store,"  to  use  his  own  language,  he 
then  went  into  the  Black  Hawk  war  and  was  elected 
captain  of  a  company  of  mounted  volunteers.  In 
one  of  the  great  debates  between  Lincoln  and  Doug- 
las, at  Ottawa,  in  1858,  he,  in  a  somewhat  patron- 
izing manner  and  in  a  spirit  of  badinage,  spoke  of 
having  known  Lincoln  for  "  twenty-four  years  "  and 
when  a  "  flourishing  grocery-keeper  "  at  New  Salem. 
The  occasion  was  too  good  a  one  not  to  furnish 
a  repartee,  and  the  people  insisted  that  while  Lin- 
coln denied  that  he  had  been  a  flourishing  "  grocery- 
keeper"  as  stated,  yet  added  that,  if  he  had  been,  it 
was  "certain  that  his  friend,  Judge  Douglas,  would 
have  been  his  best  customer."  The  Black  Hawk  war 
over,  Mr.  Lincoln  returned  to  New  Salem  to  eke  out 
a  scanty  existence  by  doing  small  jobs  of  surveying 
and  by  drawing  up  deeds  and  legal  instruments  for 
his  neighbors.  In  1834,  still  living  in  New  Salem, 
he  was  one  of  nine  members  elected  from  Sangamon 
County  to  the  lower  house  of  the  Legislature. 

I  landed  at  Galena  by  a  Mississippi  River  steam- 
boat, on  the  first  day  of  April,  1840,  ten  years  after 
Hanks  and  Lincoln  were  splitting  rails  in  Macon 
County. 

The  country  was  then  fairly  entered  on  that  mar- 
velous Presidential  campaign  between  Van  Buren 
and  Harrison,  by  far  the  most  exciting  election  the 
country  has  ever  seen,  and  which,  in  my  judgment, 


BV  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  7 

will  never  have  a  parallel,  should  the  country  have 
an  existence  for  a  thousand  years.  Illinois  was  one 
of  the  seven  States  that  voted  for  Van  Buren,  but 
the  Whigs  contested  the  election  with  great  zeal  and 
most  desperate  energy.  Galena,  theretofore  better 
known  as  the  Fevre  River  Lead  Mines,  still  held  its 
importance  as  the  center  of  the  lead  mining  region, 
and  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  principal  towns  in 
the  State  in  point  of  population,  wealth  and  enter- 
prise. But  the  bulk  of  population  of  the  State  at 
that  time,  as  well  as  the  weight  of  political  influence, 
was  south  of  Springfield. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  first  elected  to  the  lower  branch  of 
the  Legislature  (then  sitting  at  Vandalia),  from  San- 
gamon County,  in  1834 ;  and  that  was  his  first  appear- 
ance in  public  life.  He  was  re-elected  in  1S36,  1838 
and  1840,  having  served  in  all  four  terms — eight  years. 
He  then  peremptorily  declined  a  further  election. 

Before  his  election  to  the  Legislature,  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  read  law  in  a  fugitive  way  at  New  Salem,  but 
arriving  at  Vandalia,  as  a  member  of  the  Legislature, 
a  new  field  was  open  to  him  in  the  State  law  library, 
as  well  as  in  the  miscellaneous  library  at  the  capital. 
He  then  devoted  himself  most  diligently  not  only  to 
the  study  of  law,  but  to  miscellaneous  reading.  He 
always  read  understandingly,  and  there  was  no  prin- 
ciple of  law  but  what  he  mastered,  and  such  was  the 
way  in  which  he  always  impressed  his  miscellaneous 


8  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

readings  on  his  mind,  that  people  in  his  later  life 
were  amazed  at  his  wonderful  familiarity  with  books, 
even  those  so  little  known  by  the  great  mass  of 
readers.  The  seat  of  orovernment  of  Illinois  havino- 
been  removed  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield,  in  1839, 
the  latter  place  then  became  the  center  of  political 
influence  in  the  State. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  particularly  distinguished  in 
his  legislative  service.  He  participated  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  ordinary  subjects  of  legislation,  and 
was  regarded  as  a  man  of  good  sense,  and  a  wise  and 
practical  legislator.  His  uniform  fairness  was  pro- 
verbial. But  he  never  gave  any  special  evidence  of 
that  masterly  ability  for  which  he  was  afterward 
distinguished,  and  which  stamped  him,  as  by  com- 
mon consent,  the  foremost  man  of  all  the  century. 
He  was  a  prominent  Whig  in  politics,  and  took  a 
leading  part  in  all  political  discussions.  There  were 
many  men  of  both  political  parties  in  the  lower  house 
of  Legislature  during  the  service  of  Mr,  Lincoln, 
who  became  afterward  distinguished  in  the  political 
history  of  the  State,  and  among  them  might  be 
mentioned  Orlando  B.  Ficklin,  John  T.  Stuart, 
William  A.  Richardson,  John  A.  McClernand, 
Edward  D.  Baker,  Lewis  W.  Ross,  Samuel  D. 
Marshall,  Robert  Smith,  William  H.  Bissell,  and 
John  J.  Hardin,  all  subsequently  members  of  Con- 
gress, and  James  Semple,  James  Shields,  and  Lyman 


BV  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  9 

Trumbull,  United  States  Senators.  There  were 
also  many  men  of  talent  and  local  reputation,  who 
held  an  honorable  place  in  the  public  estimation 
and  made  their  mark  in  the  history  of  the  State. 
Springfield  was  the  political  center  for  the  Whigs  of 
Illinois  in  1840. 

Lincoln  had  already  acquired  a  high  reputation  as 
a  popular  speaker,  and  he  was  put  on  the  Harrison 
electoral  ticket  with  the  understanding  he  should 
canvass  the  State. 

Edward  D.  Baker  was  also  entered  as  a  campaign 
orator,  and  wherever  he  spoke  he  carried  his  audi- 
ences captive  by  the  power  of  his  eloquence  and  the 
strength  of  his  arguments.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
effective  stump  speakers  I  ever  listened  to.  It  was 
his  wonderful  eloquence  and  his  power  as  a  stump 
speaker  that  elected  him  to  Congress  from  Illinois  in 
a  district  to  which  he  did  not  belong,  and  made  him 
a  United  States  Senator  from  Oregon  when  he  was  a 
citizen  of  California. 

John  T.  Stuart  was  already  known  by  his  success- 
ful canvass  with  Douglas,  in  1838,  as  an  able  speaker 
and  a  popular  man  ;  and  John  J.  Hardin,  of  Jackson- 
ville, (killed  at  Buena  Vista)  was  widely  known  as 
a  popular  and  successful  orator.  These  Springfield 
Whigs  led  off  in  canvassing  the  State  for  Harrison 
in  1840. 

Lincoln  and  Baker  were  assigned  to  the  "  Wabash 


lO  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Country,"  where,  as  Baker  once  told  me,  they  would 
make  speeches  one  day  and  shake  with  the  ague  the 
next.  It  is  hard  to  realize  at  this  day  what  it  was  to 
make  a  political  canvass  in  Illinois  half  a  century 
gone  by.  There  were  no  railroads  and  but  few  stage 
lines.  The  speakers  were  obliged  to  travel  on  horse- 
back, carrying  their  saddle-bags  filled  with  "  hickory" 
shirts  and  woolen  socks.  They  were  frequently 
obliged  to  travel  long  distances,  through  swamps 
and  over  prairies,  to  meet  their  appointments.  The 
accommodations  were  invariably  wretched,  and  no 
matter  how  tired,  jaded  and  worn  the  speaker  might 
be,  he  was  obliged  to  respond  to  the  call  of  the  wait- 
ing and  eager  audiences. 

In  1840,  Stephen  T.  Logan,  then  a  resident  of 
Springfield,  was  one  of  the  best  known  and  most 
prominent  men  in  the  State.  Though  a  Whig,  he 
was  not  so  much  a  politician  as  a  lawyer.  In  1841, 
he  and  Mr.  Lincoln  formed  a  law  partnership  which 
continued  until  1843,  ^^^  there  was  never  a  stronger 
law  firm  in  the  State.  Like  Lincoln,  Logan  was  a 
Kentuckian,  and  a  self-made  man.  Though  a  nat- 
ural born  lawyer,  he  had  yet  studied  profoundly  the 
principles  of  the  common  law.  He  was  elected  a 
circuit  judge  in  1835,  and  held  the  office  until  1837. 
He  displayed  extraordinary  qualities  as  a  nisi  prius 
judge.  In  1842  he  consented  to  serve  in  the  lower 
branch  of  the  Legislature  from  Sangamon  County. 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  II 

He  had  even  more  simplicity  of  character,  and  was 
more  careless  in  his  dress  than  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  shall 
never  foro-et  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  him.  It  was 
in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  on 
February  lo,  1843,  and  when  he  was  a  member  of 
that  body.  He  had  a  reputation  at  that  time  as  a 
man  of  ability  and  a  lawyer  second  to  no  man  In  the 
State.  I  was  curious  to  see  the  man  of  whom  I  had 
heard  so  much,  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  impres- 
sion he  made  on  me.  He  was  a  small,  thin  man, 
with  a  little  wrinkled  and  weazened  face,  set  off  by 
an  immense  head  of  hair,  which  might  be  called 
"frowzy."  He  was  dressed  in  linsey-woolsey,  and 
wore  very  heavy  shoes.  His  shirt  was  of  unbleached 
cotton,  and  unstarched,  and  he  never  encumbered 
himself  with  a  cravat  or  other  neck  wear.  His  voice 
was  shrill,  sharp  and  unpleasant,  and  he  had  not  a 
single  grace  of  oratory — but  yet,  when  he  spoke,  he 
always  had  interested  and  attentive  listeners.  Un- 
derneath this  curious  and  grotesque  exterior  there 
was  a  gigantic  intellect.  When  he  addressed  himself 
to  a  jury  or  to  a  question  of  law  before  the  courts, 
or  made  a  speech  in  the  Legislature  or  at  the  hust- 
ings, people  looked  upon  him  and  listened  with 
amazement.  His  last  appearance  in  any  public  posi- 
tion was  as  a  delecrate  to  the  "  Peace  Convention  "at 
Washington,  in  the  spring  of  1861.  In  his  later 
years  he  lived  the  life  of  a  retired  gentleman  in  his 


12  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

beautiful  home  in  the  environs  of  Springfield.  His 
memory  has  been  honored  by  placing  his  portrait, 
one  of  the  most  admirable  ever  painted  by  Healy, 
in  the  magnificent  room  of  the  Supreme  Court  at 
Springfield. 

I  never  met  Mr.  Lincoln  till  the  first  time  I  attended 
the  Supreme  Court  at  Springfield,  in  the  winter  of 
1843  and  1844.  He  had  already  achieved  a  certain 
reputation  as  a  public  speaker,  and  was  rapidly  gain- 
ing distinction  as  a  lawyer.  He  had  already  become 
widely  known  as  a  Whig  politician,  and  his  advice 
and  counsel  were  much  sought  for  by  members  of  the 
party  all  over  the  State.  One  of  the  great  features 
in  Illinois,  nearly  half  a  century  gone  by, was  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State.  There  was 
but  one  term  of  the  court  a  year,  and  that  was  held 
first  at  Vandalia  and  then  at  Springfield.  The  law- 
yers from  every  part  of  the  State  had  to  follow  their 
cases  there  for  final  adjudication,  and  they  gathered 
there  from  all  the  principal  towns  of  the  State.  The 
occasion  served  as  a  reunion  of  a  large  number  of  the 
ablest  men  in  the  State.  Many  of  them  had  been 
draeeed  for  hundreds  of  miles  over  horrible  roads  in 
stage-coaches  or  by  private  conveyance.  For  many 
years  I  traveled  from  Galena,  one  of  the  most  remote 
parts  of  the  State,  to  Springfield,  in  a  stage-coach,  oc- 
cupying usually  three  days  and  four  nights,  traveling 
incessantly,  and  arriving  at  the  end  of  the  journey 


BY  ELIHU  B.    IVASHBURNE.  1 3 

more  dead  than  alive.  The  Supreme  Court  library 
was  in  the  court- room,  and  there  the  lawyers  would 
gather  to  look  up  their  authorities  and  prepare  their 
cases.  In  the  evening  it  was  a  sort  of  rendezvous 
for  general  conversation,  and  I  hardly  ever  knew  of 
an  evening  to  pass  without  Mr.  Lincoln  putting  in 
his  appearance.  He  was  a  man  of  the  most  social 
disposition  and  was  never  so  happy  as  when  sur- 
rounded by  congenial  friends.  His  penchant  for 
story-telling  is  well  known,  and  he  was  more  happy 
in  that  line  than  any  man  I  ever  knew.  But  many 
stories  have  been  invented  and  attributed  to  him  that 
he  never  heard  of.  Never  shall  I  forget  him  as  he 
appeared  almost  every  evening  in  the  court-room, 
sitting  in  a  cane-bottom  chair  leaning  up  against  the 
partition,  his  feet  on  a  round  of  the  chair,  and  sur- 
rounded by  many  listeners.  But  there  was  one  thing, 
he  never  pressed  his  stories  on  unwilling  ears  nor 
endeavored  to  absorb  all  attention  to  himself.  But 
his  anecdotes  were  all  so  droll,  so  original,  so  appro- 
priate and  so  illustrative  of  passing  incidents  that 
one  never  wearied.  He  never  repeated  a  story  or  an 
anecdote,  nor  vexed  the  dull  ears  of  a  drowsy  man 
by  thrice-told  tales  ;  and  he  enjoyed  a  good  story 
from  another  as  much  as  any  person. 

There  were  many  good  story-tellers  in  that  group 
of  lawyers  that  assembled  evenings  in  that  Supreme 
Court-room,  and  among  them  was  the  Hon.  Thomp- 


14  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

son  Campbell,  Secretary  of  State  under  Gov.  Ford 
from  1843  to  1846.  Mr.  Campbell  was  a  brilliant 
man  and  a  celebrated  wit.  Though  differing  in  poli- 
tics, until  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  he 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  were  strong  personal  friends,  and 
many  of  his  stories,  like  those  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  have 
gone  into  the  traditions  of  the  State.  They  were 
never  so  happy  as  when  together  and  listening  to  the 
stories  of  each  other.  Mr.  Campbell  was  elected  to 
Congress  from  the  Galena  district  in  1 850,  and  served 
one  term.  In  1853  President  Pierce  appointed  him 
a  judge  of  the  United  States  Land  Court  of  Cali- 
fornia. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  universally  popular  with  his  as- 
sociates. Of  an  even  temper,  he  had  a  simplicity 
and  charm  of  manner  which  took  hold,  at  once,  on 
all  persons  with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  He  was 
of  the  most  amiable  disposition,  and  not  given  to 
speak  unkindly  of  any  person,  but  quick  to  discover 
any  weak  points  that  person  might  have.  He  was 
always  the  center  of  attraction  in  the  court-room  at 
the  evening  gatherings,  and  all  felt  there  was  a  great 
void  when,  for  any  reason,  he  was  kept  away. 

The  associates  of  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  bar,  at  this 
time,  were,  most  of  them,  men  of  ability,  who  gave 
promise  of  future  distinction  both  at  the  bar  and  in 
the  field  of  politics.  The  lawyers  of  that  day  were 
brought  much  closer  together  than  they  ever  have 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  1 5 

been  since,  and  the  "  csp7'it  die  corps "  was  much 
more  marked.  Coming  from  long  distances  and 
suffering  great  privations  in  their  journeys,  they 
usually  remained  a  considerable  time  in  attendance 
upon  the  court. 

Among  the  noted  lawyers  at  this  time,  the  friends 
and  associates  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  subsequently 
reached  high  political  distinction,  were  John  J. 
Hardin,  falling  bravely  at  the  head  of  his  regiment 
at  Buena  Vista ;  Lyman  Trumbull,  for  eighteen 
years  United  States  Senator  from  Illinois  ;  James 
A.  McDougall,  Attorney-General  of  Illinois,  and 
subsequently  member  of  Congress  and  United 
States  Senator  from  California  ;  Stephen  A.  Doug- 
las, Edward  D.  Baker,  Thompson  Campbell,  Joseph 
Gillespie,  O.  B.  Ficklin,  Archibald  Williams,  James 
Shields,  Isaac  N.  Arnold  (who  was  to  become  Mr. 
Lincoln's  biographer);  Norman  H.  Purple,  O.  H. 
Browning,  subsequently  United  States  Senator  and 
Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Judge  Thomas  Drum- 
mond,  of  the  United  States  Circuit  Court,  and  many 
others,  all  the  contemporaries  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and 
always  holding  with  him  the  most  cordial  and 
friendly  relations. 

In  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1844,  Mr.  Lincoln 
canvassed  the  State  very  thoroughly  for  Mr.  Clay, 
and  added  much  to  his  already  well-established  repu- 
tation as  a  stump  speaker.      His  reputation  also  as  a 


1 6  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

lawyer  had  Steadily  increased.  In  August,  1846,  he 
was  elected  to  Congress  as  a  Whig  from  the  Spring- 
field  district. 

Ceasing  to  attend  the  courts  at  Springfield,  I  saw 
but  little  of  Mr.  Lincoln  for  a  few  years.  We  met 
at  the  celebrated  River  and  Harbor  Convention  at 
Chicago,  held  July  5,  6  and  7,  1847.  He  was  simply 
a  looker  on,  and  took  no  leading  part  in  the  conven- 
tion. His  dress  and  personal  appearance  on  that 
occasion  could  not  well  be  forgotten.  It  was  then 
for  the  first  time  I  heard  him  called  "  Old  Abe." 
Old  Abe,  as  applied  to  him,  seems  strange  enough, 
as  he  was  then  a  young  man,  only  thirty-six  years  of 
age.  One  afternoon,  several  of  us  sat  on  the  side- 
walk under  the  balcony  in  front  of  the  Sherman 
House,  and  among  the  number  the  accomplished 
scholar  and  unrivaled  orator,  Lisle  Smith.  He  sud- 
denly interrupted  the  conversation  by  exclaiming, 
"  There  is  Lincoln  on  the  other  side  of  the  street. 
Just  look  at  'Old  Abe,'"  and  from  that  time  we  all 
called  him  "  Old  Abe."  No  one  who  saw  him  can 
forget  his  personal  appearance  at  that  time.  Tall, 
angular  and  awkward,  he  had  on  a  short-waisted, 
thin  swallow-tail  coat,  a  short  vest  of  same  material, 
thin  pantaloons,  scarcely  coming  down  to  his  ankles, 
a  straw  hat  and  a  pair  of  brogans  with  woolen  socks. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  always  a  great  favorite  with 
young  men,  particularly  with  the  younger  members 


BV  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  I  J 

of  the  bar.  It  was  a  popularity  not  run  after,  but 
which  followed.  He  never  used  the  arts  of  the 
demagogue  to  ingratiate  himself  with  any  person. 
Beneath  his  ungainly  exterior  he  wore  a  golden 
heart.  He  was  ever  ready  to  do  an  act  of  kindness 
whenever  in  his  power,  particularly  to  the  poor  and 
lowly. 

Mr.  Lincoln  took  his  seat  in  Congress  on  the  first 
Monday  in  December,  1847.  I  was  in  attendance 
on  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  at 
Washington  that  winter,  and  as  he  was  the  only 
member  of  Congress  from  the  State  who  was  in  har- 
mony  with  my  own  political  sentiments,  I  saw  much 
of  him  and  passed  a  good  deal  of  time  in  his  room. 
He  belonged  to  a  mess  that  boarded  at  Mrs.  Spriggs, 
in  "Duff  Green's  Row"  on  Capitol  Hill.  At  the 
first  session,  the  mess  was  composed  of  John  Blanch- 
ard,  John  Dickey,  A.  R.  Mcllvaine,  James  Pollock, 
John  Strohm,  of  Pennsylvania;  Elisha  Embree,  of 
Indiana ;  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  of  Ohio  ;  A.  Lincoln, 
of  Illinois,  and  P.  W.  Tompkins,  of  Mississippi. 
The  same  members  composed  the  mess  at  Mrs. 
Spriggs'  the  short  session,  with  the  exception  of 
Judge  Embree  and  Mr.  Tompkins  Without  excep- 
tion, these  gentlemen  are  all  dead.  He  sat  in  the 
old  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  for 
the  long  session  was  so  unfortunate  as  to  draw  one 
of  the  most  undesirable  seats  in  the  hall.      He  par- 


1 8  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ticipated  but  little  in  the  active  business  of  the 
House,  and  made  the  personal  acquaintance  of  but 
few  members.  He  was  attentive  and  conscientious 
in  the  discharge  of  his  duties,  and  followed  the 
course  of  legislation  closely.  When  he  took  his  seat 
in  the  House,  the  campaign  of  1848  for  President 
was  just  opening.  Out  of  the  small  number  of 
Whig  members  of  Congress  who  were  favorable  to 
the  nomination  of  General  Taylor  by  the  Whig  Con- 
vention, he  was  one  of  the  most  ardent  and  out- 
spoken. The  following  letter  addressed  to  me  on 
the  subject  will  indicate  the  warmth  of  his  support 
of  General  Taylor's  nomination  : 

Washington,  April  t^o,  1848, 
Dear  Washburne  : 

I  have  this  moment  received  your  very  short  note 
asking  me  if  old  Taylor  is  to  be  used  up,  and  who 
will  be  the  nominee.  My  hope  of  Taylor's  nomina- 
tion is  as  high — a  little  higher  than  when  you  left. 
Still  the  case  is  by  no  means  out  of  doubt.  Mr. 
Clay's  letter  has  not  advanced  his  interests  any  here. 
Several  who  were  against  Taylor,  but  not  for  any- 
body particularly  before,  are  since  taking  ground, 
some  for  Scott  and  some  for  McLean.  Who  will  be 
nominated,  neither  I  nor  any  one  else  can  tell.  Now, 
let  me  pray  to  you  in  turn.  My  prayer  is,  that  you 
let  nothing  discourage  or  baf^e  you,  but  that  in  spite 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  1 9 

of  every  difficulty  you  send  us  a  good  Taylor  dele- 
gate from  your  circuit.  Make  Baker,  who  is  now 
with  you  I  suppose,  help  about  it.  He  is  a  good 
hand  to  raise  a  breeze.  General  Ashley,  in  the  Sen- 
ate from  Arkansas,  died  yesterday.  Nothing  else 
new,  beyond  what  you  see  in  the  papers. 

Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

I  was  again  in  Washington  part  of  the  winter  of 
1849  (after  the  election  of  General  Taylor),  and  saw 
much  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  A  small  number  of  mutual 
friends — including  Mr.  Lincoln — made  up  a  party  to 
attend  the  inauguration  ball  together.  It  was  by  far 
the  most  brilliant  inauguration  ball  ever  given.  Of 
course  Mr.  Lincoln  had  never  seen  anything  of  the 
kind  before.  One  of  the  most  modest  and  unpre- 
tending persons  present — he  could  not  have  dreamed 
that  like  honors  were  to  come  to  him,  almost  within 
a  little  more  than  a  decade.  He  was  greatly  inter- 
ested in  all  that  was  to  be  seen,  and  we  did  not  take 
our  departure  until  three  or  four  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. When  we  went  to  the  cloak  and  hat  room,  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  no  trouble  in  finding,  his  short  cloak, 
which  little  more  than  covered  his  shoulders,  but, 
after  a  long  search,  was  unable  to  find  his  hat.  After 
an  hour  he  gave  up  all  idea  of  finding  it.  Taking 
his  cloak  on  his  arm,  he  walked   out   into  Judiciary 


20  REMINISCENCES  OE  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Square,  deliberately  adjusting  it  on  his  shoulders,  and 
started  off  bareheaded  for  his  lodgings.  It  would  be 
hard  to  forget  the  sight  of  that  tall  and  slim  man, 
with  his  short  cloak  thrown  over  his  shoulders,  start- 
ing for  his  long  walk  home  on  Capitol  Hill, at  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  without  any  hat  on. 

And  this  incident  is  akin  to  one  related  to  me  by 
the  librarian  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  Mr.  Lincoln  came  to  the  library  one  day  for 
the  purpose  of  procuring  some  law  books  which  he 
wanted  to  take  to  his  room  for  examination.  Get- 
ting togeth-er  all  the  books  he  wanted,  he  placed 
them  in  a  pile  on  a  table.  Taking  a  large  bandana 
handkerchief  from  his  pocket,  he  tied  them  up,  and 
putting  a  stick  which  he  had  brought  with  him 
through  a  knot  he  had  made  in  the  handkerchief, 
adjusting  the  package  of  books  to  his  stick  he  shoul- 
dered it,  and  marched  off  from  the  library  to  his 
room.  In  a  few  days  he  returned  the  books  in  the 
same  way. 

Mr.  Lincoln  declined  to  run  for  Congress  for  a 
second  term,  1848.  His  old  partner  and  friend, 
Judge  Stephen  T.  Logan,  was  the  Whig  candidate, 
and,  to  the  amazement  of  every  one,  was  defeated 
by  a  Democrat,  Colonel  Thomas  L.  Harris,  of  "  Me- 
nard "  County. 

From  1849,  o"  returning  from  Congress,  until 
1854,  he  practiced  law  more  assiduously  than  ever 


BY  ELIHU  B.    IVASHBURNE.  21 

before.     In  respect  to  that  period  of  his  Hfe  he  once 
wrote  to  a  friend  : 

"  I  was  losing  interest  in  politics  when  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise  aroused  me  again." 

There  was  a  great  upturning  in  the  political  situa- 
tion in  Illinois,  brought  about  by  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise  in  1854.  In  the  fall  of  that 
year  an  election  was  to  be  held  in  Illinois  for  mem- 
bers of  Congress  and  for  members  of  the  Legislature 
which  was  to  elect  a  successor  to  General  Shields, 
who  had  committed  what  was  to  the  people  of  Illi- 
nois, the  unpardonable  sin  of  voting  for  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise.  There  was  something  in 
that  legislation  which  was  particularly  revolting  to 
Mr.  Lincoln,  as  it  outraged  all  his  ideas  of  political 
honesty  and  fair  dealing. 

There  was  an  exciting  canvass  in  the  State,  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  entered  into  it  with  great  spirit,  and  ac- 
complished great  results  by  his  powerful  speeches. 
From  his  standing  in  the  State  and  from  the  great 
service  he  had  rendered  in  the  campaign,  it  was 
agreed  that  if  the  Republicans  and  anti-Nebraska 
men  should  carry  the  Legislature,  Mr.  Lincoln  would 
succeed  General  Shields.  I  know  that  he  himself 
expected  it.  There  is  a  long  and  painful  history  of 
that  Senatorial  contest  yet  to  be  written,  and  when 
the  whole  truth  is  disclosed  it  will  throw  a  flood  of 
new  light  on  the  character  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  will 


2  2  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

add  new  luster  to  his  greatness,  his  generosity,  his 
magnanimity  and  his  patriotism.  There  is  no  event 
in  Mr.  Lincoln's  entire  political  career  that  brought 
to  him  so  much  disappointment  and  chagrin  as  his 
defeat  for  United  States  Senator  in  1855,  but  he 
accepted  the  situation  uncomplainingly,  and  never 
indulged  in  reproaches  or  criticism  upon  any  one  ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  always  formed  excuses  for 
those  who  had  been  charo-ed  with  not  acting^  in  orood 
faith  toward  him  and  to  those  with  whom  he  was 
associated.  He  never  forofot  the  obligations  he  was 
under  to  those  who  had  faithfully  stood  by  him  in 
his  contest,  through  good  and  evil  report. 

Allied  to  him  by  the  strongest  ties  of  personal  and 
political  friendship,  I  did  all  in  my  power  to  secure 
for  him,  which  I  did,  the  support  of  the  members 
of  the  Legislature  from  my  Congressional  District. 
The  day  after  the  election  for  Senator  he  addressed 
to  me  a  long  letter,  several  pages  of  letter-paper, 
giving  a  detailed  account  of  the  contest  and  the  rea- 
sons of  his  action  in  persuading  his  friends  to  vote 
for  and  elect  Judge  Trumbull,  and  expressing  the 
opinion  that  I  would  have  acted  in  the  same  way  if 
I  had  been  in  his  place.     He  then  says: 

"  I  regret  my  defeat  moderately,  but  am  not  ner- 
vous about  it.  *  "  "  Perhaps  it  is  as  well  for 
our  grand  cause  that  Trumbull  is  elected." 

He  then  closes  his  letter  as  follows  : 


£y  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  23 

"  With  my  grateful  acknowledgments  for  the  kind, 
active,  and  continual  interest  you  have  taken  for  me 
in  this  matter,  allow  me  to  subscribe  myself, 

"  Yours,  forever, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

On  the  last  day  of  the  balloting  in  the  Legislature, 
it  seemed  inevitable  that  a  Nebraska  Democrat  would 
be  elected  United  States  Senator.  Judge  Trumbull 
had  the  votes  of  five  anti-Nebraska  Democrats.  And 
of  this  crisis  Mr.  Lincoln  writes  to  me  : 

"  So  I  determined  to  strike  at  once,  and  accord- 
ingly advising  my  friends  to  go  for  him,  which  they 
did,  and  elected  him  on  that,  the  loth  ballot." 

Thouofh  the  failure  to  elect  Mr.  Lincoln  brouo^ht 
grief  to  many  hearts,  yet  the  election  of  Judge 
Trumbull  was  well  received  by  the  entire  anti- 
Nebraska  party  in  the  State.  He  proved  himself  an 
able,  true  and  loyal  Senator,  rendered  great  services 
to  the  Union  cause,  and  proved  himself  a  worthy 
representative  of  a  great,  loyal   and  patriotic  State. 

Notwithstanding  the  great  satisfaction  with  which 
Judge  Trumbull's  election  had  been  received,  there 
was  a  deep  and  profound  feeling  among  the  old 
Whigs,  the  Republicans  and  many  anti-Nebraska 
Democrats,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  have  had  the 
position,  and  that  he  had  not  been  fairly  treated. 
But    never    a   complaint    or   a    suggestion    of    that 


24  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

kind  escaped  the  lips  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Cheerily  and 
bravely  and  contentedly  he  went  back  to  his  law 
office,  and  business  poured  in  upon  him  more  than 
ever. 

In  stepping  one  side  and  securing  the  election  of 
Judge  Trumbull,  he  "  builded  better  than  he  knew.' 
Had  Mr.  Lincoln  been  elected  Senator  at  that  time, 
he  would  never  have  had  the  canvass  with  Judge 
Douglas  in  1858,  never  been  elected  President  in 
i860,  to  leave  a  name  that  will  never  die. 

From  1855  to  1858,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  absorbed  in 
the  practice  of  his  profession,  though  he  took  an 
active  part  in  the  canvass  of  1856,  when  the  gallant 
Colonel  Bissell  was  elected  Governor.  But  what 
was  somewhat  remarkable,  in  all  this  time,  without 
the  least  personal  effort,  and  without  any  resort  to 
the  usual  devices  of  politicians,  Mr.  Lincoln's  popu- 
larity continued  to  increase  in  every  portion  of  the 
State. 

In  the  fall  of  1858,  there  was  to  be  an  election 
of  a  Legislature  which  would  choose  a  successor 
to  Judge  Douglas,  whose  term  of  service  was  to 
expire  March  3,  1859.  The  Republican  party  by 
this  time,  had  become  completely  organized  and 
solidified,  and  in  Illinois  the  Republican  and  Dem- 
ocratic parties  squarely  confronted  each  other. 
Everywhere,  by  common  consent,  no  Republican 
candidate  for   Senator  was   spoken    of   except    Mr. 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  25 

Lincoln.  In  the  Republican  State  Convention  in 
the  summer  of  1858,  a  resolution  was  unanimously 
passed  designating  Mr.  Lincoln  as  the  unanimous 
choice  of  the  Republicans  of  the  State,  as  the  candi- 
date for  United  States  Senator,  to  succeed  Judge 
Douglas.  That  action  is  without  precedent  in  the 
State,  and  shows  the  deep  hold  Mr.  Lincoln  had  on 
his  party. 

Without  being  designated  by  any  authorized  body 
of  Democrats,  yet  by  common  consent  of  the  party, 
Judge  Douglas  became  the  candidate  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  No  other  candidates  were  mentioned 
on  either  side,  either  directly  or  indirectly. 

The  seven  joint  discussions  which  the  candidates 
had  in  different  parts  of  the  State  have  become  a 
part  of  the  political  history  of  the  countr}^  It  was 
a  battle  of  the  giants.  The  parties  were  rallied,  as 
one  man,  to  the  enthusiastic  support  of  their  respec- 
tive candidates,  and  it  is  hard  for  any  one  not  in  the 
State  at  the  time  to  measure  the  excitement  which 
everywhere  prevailed.  There  was  little  talk  about 
Republicanism  and  Democracy,  but  it  was  all  "  Lin- 
coln and  Douglas,"  or  "  Douglas  and  Lincoln,"  I 
attended  only  one  of  these  joint  discussions.  It  was 
at  Freeport,  in  my  Congressional  District,  which 
was  the  bulwark  of  Republicanism  in  the  State. 
Two  years  later  it  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  a  majority  for 
President  of  nearly  fourteen  thousand,  and  my  own 


26  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

majority  for  member  of  Congress  was  about  the 
same.  The  Freeport  discussion  was  held  in  August. 
The  day  was  bright,  but  the  wind  sweeping  down 
the  prairies  gave  us  a  chilly  afternoon  for  an  out-of- 
door  gathering.  In  company  with  a  large  number 
of  Galena  people,  we  reached  Freeport  by  train, 
about  ten  o'clock  in  the  mornincr.      Mr.  Lincoln  had 

o 

come  in  from  the  south  the  same  morning,  and  we 
found  him  at  the  Brewster  House,  which  was  a 
sort  of  rallying-point  for  the  Republicans.  He  had 
stood  his  campaign  well,  and  was  in  splendid  con- 
dition. He  was  surrounded  all  the  forenoon  by 
sturdy  Republicans,  who  had  come  long  distances, 
not  only  to  hear  him  speak,  but  to  see  him,  and  it 
was  esteemed  the  greatest  privilege  to  shake  hands 
with  "  Honest  Old  Abe."  He  had  a  kind  word  or 
some  droll  remark  for  every  one,  and  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  no  one  who  spoke  to  him  that  day  will  ever 
have  the  Interview  effaced  from  memory.  The 
meeting  was  held  on  a  vacant  piece  of  ground,  not 
far  from  the  center  of  the  town.  The  crowd  was 
immense  and  the  enthusiasm  great.  Each  party 
tried  to  outdo  the  other  in  the  applause  for  its 
own  candidate.  The  speaking  commenced,  but  the 
chilly  air  dampened  the  ardor  of  the  audience.  Mr. 
Lincoln  spoke  deliberately,  and  apparently  under  a 
deep  sense  of  the  responsibility  which  rested  upon 
him.      The  questions  he  propounded  to  Mr.  Douglas 


£V  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  27 

he  had  put  in  writing  (and  the  answers  to  which 
sounded  the  political  death-knell  of  Mr.  Douglas)  ; 
he  read  slowly,  and  with  great  distinctness.  The 
speech  of  Mr.  Douglas  was  not  up  to  his  usual 
standard.  He  was  evidently  embarrassed  by  the 
questions,  and  floundered  in  his  replies.  The  crowd 
was  large,  the  wind  was  chilly,  and  there  was  neces- 
sarily much  "  noise  and  confusion,"  and  the  audience 
did  not  take  in  the  vast  importance  of  the  debate. 
On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  neither  party  was 
fully  satisfied  with  the  speeches,  and  the  meeting 
broke  up  without  any  display  of  enthusiasm. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  in  this  essay  to  follow  the 
incidents  of  the  Presidential  campaign  of  i860.  The 
great  event  in  Illinois  was  the  monster  Republican 
mass  meeting  held  at  Springfield  during  the  canvass. 
It  was  a  meeting  for  the  whole  State,  and  more  in 
the  nature  of  a  personal  ovation  to  Mr.  Lincoln  than 
merely  a  political  gathering.  It  was  one  of  the  most 
enormous  and  impressive  gatherings  I  had  ever  wit- 
nessed. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  surrounded  by  some  intimate  friends, 
sat  on  the  balcony  of  his  humble  home.  It  took 
hours  for  all  the  delegations  to  file  before  him,  and 
there  v/as  no  token  of  enthusiasm  wanting.  He  was 
deeply  touched  by  the  manifestations  of  personal  and 
political  friendship,  and  returned  all  his  salutations 
in  that  off-hand  and  kindly  manner  which  belonged 


28  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  him.  I  know  of  no  demonstration  of  a  similar 
character  that  can  compare  with  it  except  the  review 
by  Napoleon  of  his  army  for  the  invasion  of  Russia, 
about  the  same  season  of  the  year  in  1812. 

Mr.  Lincoln  remained  quietly  at  his  own  home  in 
Springfield  during  the  Presidential  canvass  of  i860, 
but  he  watched  narrowly  all  the  incidents  of  the  cam- 
paign.    On  the  26th  of  May  he  wrote  me  as  follows : 

w%  *  *  I  have  your  letters  written  since  the 
nominations,  but  till  now  I  have  found  no  moment 
to  say  a  word  by  way  of  answer.  Of  course  I  am 
glad  that  the  nomination  is  well  received  by  our 
friends,  and  I  sincerely  thank  you  for  so  informing 
me.  So  far  as  I  can  learn,  the  nominations  take  well 
everywhere,  and  if  we  get  no  back-set.  it  would  seem 
as  if  they  were  going  through. 

"  I  hope  you  will  write  often  ;  and  as  you  write 
more  rapidly  than  I  do,  don't  make  your  letters  so 
short  as  mine. 

"  Yours,  very  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  his  periods  of  anxiety  and  deep 
concern  during  the  canvass.  As  chairman  of  the 
House  Congressional  (Republican)  Committee,  I  was 
engaged  at  Washington  during  the  campaign.  On 
the  9th  of  September  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  me  as  fol- 
lows from  Springfield : 


BV  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  29 

"Yours  of  the  5th  was  received  last  evening.  I 
was  right  glad  to  get  it.  It  contains  the  latest 
'posting'  which  I  now  have.  It  relieves  me  some 
from  a  little  anxiety  I  had  about  Maine,  Jo.  Medill, 
on  August  30th,  wrote  me  that  Colfax  had  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Hamlin,  saying  we  were  in  great  danger  of 
losing  two  members  of  Congress  in  Maine,  and  that 
your  brother  would  not  have  exceeding  six  thousand 
majority  for  Governor,  I  addressed  you  at  once,  at 
Galena,  asking  for  your  latest  information.  As  you 
are  at  Washington,  that  letter  you  will  receive  some 
time  after  the  Maine  election. 

"  Yours,  very  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

Though  the  election  was  over  there  came  gloomy 
days  for  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  he  pondered  well  on  the 
great  problem  before  him.  He  had  weighed  well  all 
the  important  questions  which  had  arisen,  and  in 
him  there  was  neither  chancre  nor  shadow  of  turning. 
On  the  13th  day  of  December  he  wrote  to  me  as 
follows  : 

"  Hon,  E.  B.  Washburne  : 

"  My  dear  Sir : — Your  long  letter  received. 
Prevent  as  far  as  possible  any  of  our  friends  from 
demoralizing  themselves  and  our  cause  by  entertain- 
ing propositions  for  compromise  of  any  sort  on 
slavery  extension.     There  is  no  possible  compromise 


30 


REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Upon  it,  but  which  puts  us  under  again,  and  all  our 
work  to  do  over  again.  Whether  it  be  a  Missouri 
line  or  Eli  Thayer's  Popular  Sovereignty,  it  is  all 
the  same. — Let  either  be  done,  and  immediately 
filibustering  and  extending  slavery  recommences. 
On  that  point  hold  firm  as  a  chain  of  steel. 

"  Yours,  as  ever, 

"A.  LLNCOLN." 

As  the  time  of  inauguration  drew  near  there  was 
an  intense  anxiety,  not  unmingled  with  trepidation, 
all  over  the  loyal  North  as  to  how  Mr.  Lincoln 
might  meet  the  approaching  crisis.  Many  and 
varied  were  the  speculations  as  to  what  course  he 
would  take.  Looking  at  his  character  and  life,  many 
feared  he  had  not  fully  comprehended  the  gravity 
of  the  situation.  On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
weighed  the  whole  matter  and  fully  determined  in 
his  own  mind  what  course  he  would  pursue.  In 
December,  i860,  he  wrote  me  the  following  letter  : 

"  Confidential. 

"Springfield,  Dec.  21,  i860. 
"  Hon.  E.  B.  Washburne  : 

"  My  dear  Sir  : — Last  night  I  received  your  letter, 
giving  an  account  of  your  interview  with  General 
Scott,  and  for  which  I  thank  you.  Please  present 
my  respects  to  the  General  and  tell  him  confidentially 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURXE.  3 1 

I  shall  be  obliged  to  him  to  be  as  well  prepared  as 
he  can  to  either  hold,  or  retake,  the  forts,  as  the  case 
may  require,  at  and  after  the  inauguration. 

"  Yours,  as  ever, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

On  the  13th  of  February,  1861,  the  two  Houses 
of  Congress  met  in  joint  session  to  count  and  declare 
the  electoral  vote.  As  in  all  times  of  great  excite- 
ment, the  air  was  filled  with  numberless  and  absurd 
rumors;  a  few  were  in  fear  that  in  some  unforeseen 
way  the  ceremony  of  the  count  might  be  interrupted 
and  the  result  not  declared.  And  hence  all  Wash- 
ington was  on  the  qui  vive.  The  joint  meeting  was 
to  take  place  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives at  high  noon.  An  immense  throng  filled  the 
House  end  of  the  Capitol.  All  the  gilded  corridors 
leading  to  the  Hall  of  the  House  were  crowded,  and 
the  galleries  packed.  Beautiful  and  gorgeously 
dressed  ladies  entered  the  Hall,  found  their  way  into 
the  cloak  rooms,  and  many  of  them  occupied  the 
seats  of  the  members,  who  gallantly  surrendered 
them  for  the  occasion. 

At  twenty  minutes  after  twelve,  the  door-keeper 
announced  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  The 
Senators  entered,  headed  by  their  President,  Hon. 
John  C.  Breckenridge,  the  members  of  the  House 
rising  to  receive  them.     The  Vice-President  took  his 


32  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

seat  on  the  right  of  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  (the  Hon.  William  Pennington,  of 
New  Jersey).  The  joint  convention  of  the  two 
Houses  was  presided  over  by  Mr.  Breckenridge,  who 
served  out  his  term  of  Vice-President,  till  March  4, 
1 86 1.  The  Hon.  Lyman  Trumbull  was  appointed 
teller  on  the  part  of  the  Senate,  and  Messrs.  Phelps, 
of  Missouri,  and  Washburne,  of  Illinois,  on  the  part 
of  the  House.  The  count  proceeded  without  inci- 
dent, and  the  Vice-President  announced  the  election 
of  Lincoln  and  Hamlin.  Mr.  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  then 
offered  the  ordinary  resolution  of  notification  to  the 
President  elect,  by  a  committee  of  two  members  from 
the  House,  to  be  joined  by  one  member  from  the 
Senate.  Mr.  Hindman,  of  Arkansas,  one  of  the  most 
violent  and  vindictive  secessionists,  insisted  that  the 
same  committee  "  inform  General  Scott  that  there 
was  no  more  use  for  his  janizaries  about  the  Capitol, 
the  votes  being  counted  and  the  result  proclaimed." 
Mr.  Grow,  of  Pennsylvania,  responded  that  gentle- 
men seemed  to  trouble  themselves  a  good  deal  about 
General  Scott  on  all  occasions. 

There  was  a  certain  feeling  of  relief  among  the 
loyal  people  of  the  country  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
been  declared  to  be  duly  elected  President,  without 
the  least  pretense  of  illegality  or  irregularity. 

The  second  session  of  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress 
convened  on  the  first  Monday  of  December,  1861. 


BV  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  33 

The  Senators  and  Representatives  of  the  rebellious 
States  were  no  long-er  with  us.  The  rumblinsfs  of 
treason,  deep  and  Significant,  were  everywhere  heard. 
What  was  to  be  the  outcome  no  one  could  tell. 
Anxiety  and  sadness  sat  enthroned  in  both  Houses, 
but  there  was  faith  unshaken  and  courage  unsub- 
dued. A  state  of  things  existed  well  calculated  to 
shake  the  stoutest  hearts. 

The  loyal  members  of  both  Senate  and  House 
were  closely  organized  to  concert  measures  to  meet 
the  appalling  emergencies  that  confronted  them.  It 
was  determined  that  each  House  should  appoint  one 
of  its  members  to  form  a  committee  to  watch  the  cur- 
rent of  events  and  discover  as  far  as  possible  the  in- 
tentions and  acts  of  the  rebels.  This  committee  of 
"  Public  Safety,"  as  it  might  be  called,  was  a  small 
one,  only  two  members.  Governor  Grimes,  the  Sen- 
ator from  Iowa,  on  the  part  of  the  Senate,  and  my- 
self on  the  part  of  the  House.  Clothed  with  full 
powers,  we  at  once  put  ourselves  in  communication 
with  General  Scott,  the  head  of  the  army,  with  head- 
quarters at  Washington,  and  Chief  of  Police  Ken- 
nedy, of  New  York  City,  a  loyal  and  true  man  with 
a  skill  unsurpassed  by  a  Fouche  or  a  Vidocq.  He 
at  once  sent  us  some  of  his  most  skillful  and  trusted 
detectives ;  and  earnestly,  loyally,  and  courageously 
they  went  to  work  to  unravel  the  plots  and  schemes 
set  on  foot  to  destroy  us.     And  never  was  detective 


34  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

work  more  skillfully  and  faithfully  done,  not  only  in 
Washineton,  but  in  Baltimore  and  Richmond  and 
Alexandria.  They  were  all  good  rebels  ;  they  had 
long  beards  and  wore  slouched  hats  and  seedy  coats  ; 
they  chewed  tobacco  and  smoked  cheap  cigars ; 
damned  the  Yankees  and  drank  bad  whisky;  and 
they  obtained  a  great  deal  of  valuable  information 
in  respect  to  hostile  plans  and  schemes. 

As  the  4th  of  March  drew  near,  what  occupied  our 
most  anxious  thought  was,  how  Mr.  Lincoln  could 
get  to  Washington  and  be  inaugurated.  Another 
committee  was  formed,  one  from  each  House,  to  look 
after  that  matter.  Governor  Seward  was  the  Senate 
member,  and  I  was  put  on  on  the  part  of  the  House, 
for  the  reason,  perhaps,  that  I  was  from  Illinois,  a 
known  personal  friend  of  the  President  who  had  been 
in  close  correspondence  with  him  all  winter.  Asso- 
ciating ourselves  together,  we  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  everything  must  be  done  with  the  most  profound 
secrecy.  Governor  Seward,  his  son  Frederic  W. 
Seward,  subsequently  his  Assistant  Secretary  of  State, 
and  myself  were  the  only  persons  in  Washington  who 
had  any  knowledge  whatever  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  pro- 
posed movements.  That  there  was  a  conspiracy  in 
Baltimore  to  assassinate  him  as  he  should  pass 
through,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt.  We 
hoped  he  might  be  able  to  come  through  in  the  day- 
time from   Philadelphia,  taking  a  train  secretly  and 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  35 

cutting  the  wires,  so  that  his  departure  could  not  be 
known.  But  General  Scott's  detectives  in  Baltimore 
had  developed  such  a  condition  of  things,  that  Gov- 
ernor Seward  thought  that  the  President-elect  and 
his  friends  in  Philadelphia  should  be  advised  in  regard 
thereto,  and  on  the  night  of  the  22d  of  February  he 
sent  his  son,  Frederic  W.,  over  to  Philadelphia  to 
consult  with  them.  Till  now  we  had  believed  the 
President  would  come  over  from  Philadelphia  on  the 
train  leaving  there  at  noon  of  the  23d.  In  the  mean 
time  the  President  had  promised  to  run  up  to  Harris- 
burg  to  attend  a  reception  of  the  Pennsylvania  Legis- 
lature at  twelve  o'clock  on  that  day.  Up  to  this  time 
the  situation  had  been  fully  discussed  by  the  friends 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  light  of  all  the  information  re- 
ceived, but  no  particular  programme  agreed  upon.  It 
was  not  until  the  party  started  for  Harrisburg  the 
next  morning  that  the  best  method  of  getting  to 
Washington  was  finally  talked  over.  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  previously  had  a  conversation  with  the  detective 
Pinkerton  and  Mr.  Frederic  W.  Seward  in  regard  to 
the  condition  of  things  at  Baltimore.  The  Hon.  Nor- 
man B.  Judd,  of  Chicago,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
and  trusted  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  accom- 
panied the  party  from  Springfield,  suggested  a  plan 
which,  after  full  discussion  by  Mr.  Lincoln  and  all  his 
friends  present,  was  agreed  upon  and  successfully 
carried  out.    This  plan,  as  is  generally  known,  was  that 


36  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

after  the  dinner  which  Governor  Curtin  had  tendered 
to  him  had  been  finished,  at  six  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, he  should  take  a  special  car  and  train  from 
Harrisburg  for  Philadelphia  to  intercept  the  night 
train  from  New  York  to  Washington.  'The  telegraph 
wires  from  Harrisburg  were  all  cut,  so  there  could  be 
no  possible  telegraphic  connection  with  the  outside 
world. 

The  connection  was  made  at  Philadelphia.  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  transferred  to  the  Washington  train 
without  observation,  to  arrive  at  his  destination  on 
time  the  next  morning  without  the  least  miscarriage, 
as  will  be  stated  hereafter.  On  the  afternoon  of  the 
23d,  Mr.  Seward  came  to  my  seat  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  and  told  me  he  had  no  information 
from  his  son  nor  any  one  else  in  respect  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  movements,  and  that  he  could  have  none, 
as  the  wires  were  all  cut,  but  he  thought  it  very 
probable  he  would  arrive  in  the  regular  train  from 
Philadelphia,  and  he  suggested  that  we  would  meet 
at  the  depot  to  receive  him.  We  were  promptly 
on  hand  ;  the  train  arrived  in  time,  and  with  strained 
eyes  we  watched  the  descent  of  the  passengers.  But 
there  was  no  Mr.  Lincoln  among  them  ;  though 
his  arrival  was  by  no  means  certain,  yet  we  were 
much  disappointed.  But  as  there  was  no  telegraphic 
connection,  it  was  impossible  for  us  to  have  any  in- 
formation.    It  was  no  use  to  speculate — sad,  disap- 


I 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE. 


37 


pointed,  and  under  the  empire  of  conflicting  emo- 
tions we  separated  to  go  to  our  respective  homes, 
but  agreeing  to  be  at  the  depot  on  the  arrival  of  the 
New  York  train  the  next  morning  before  daylight, 
hoping  either  to  meet  the  President  or  get  some 
information  as  to  his  movements.  I  was  on  hand  in 
season,  but  to  my  great  disappointment  Governor 
Seward  did  not  appear.  I  planted  myself  behind 
one  of  the  great  pillars  in  the  old  Washington  and 
Baltimore  depot,  where  I  could  see  and  not  be  ob- 
served. Presently  the  train  came  rumbling  in  on 
time.      It  was  a  moment  of  great  anxiety  to  me. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  printed  in  the  news- 
papers about  Mr.  Lincoln's  arrival  in  Washington 
and  about  the  "  Scotch  cap  "  and  "  big  shawl  "  he 
wore  through  Baltimore,  etc.,  etc.,  most  of  which  is 
mere  stuff.  I  propose  now  to  tell  about  his  arrival 
at  Washington,  from  my  own  personal  knowledge — 
what  I  saw  with  my  own  eyes  and  what  I  heard  with 
my  own  ears,  not  the  eyes  and  ears  of  some  one  else. 

As  I  have  stated,  I  stood  behind  the  pillar  await- 
ing the  arrival  of  the  train.  When  it  came  to  a 
stop  I  watched  with  fear  and  trembling  to  see  the 
passengers  descend.  I  saw  every  car  emptied,  and 
there  was  no  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  was  well-nieh  in  de- 
spair,  and  when  about  to  leave  I  saw  slowly  emerge 
from  the  last  sleeping  car  three  persons.  I  could 
not  mistake  the  long,  lank  form  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and 


38  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

my  heart  bounded  with  joy  and  gratitude.  He  had 
on  a  soft  low-crowned  hat,  a  muffler  around  his  neck, 
and  a  short  bob-tailed  overcoat.  Any  one  who  knew 
him  at  that  time  could  not  have  failed  to  recoo-nize 
him  at  once,  but,  I  must  confess,  he  looked  more  like 
a  well-to-do  farmer  from  one  of  the  back  towns  of 
Jo  Daviess  County  coming  to  Washington  to  see  the 
city,  take  out  his  land  warrant  and  get  the  patent  for 
his  farm,  than  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

The  only  persons  that  accompanied  Mr.  Lincoln 
were  Pinkerton,  the  well-known  detective,  recently 
deceased,  and  Ward  H.  Lamon.  When  they  were 
fairly  on  the  platform  and  a  short  distance  from  the 
car,  I  stepped  forward  and  accosted  the  President : 
**  How  are  you,  Lincoln  ? " 

At  this  unexpected  and  rather  familiar  salutation 
the  gentlemen  were  apparently  somewhat  startled, 
but  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  recognized  me,  relieved 
them  at  once  by  remarking  in  his  peculiar  voice  : 

"  This  is  only  Washburne  !  " 

Then  we  all  exchanged  congratulations  and 
walked  out  to  the  front  of  the  depot,  where  I  had  a 
carriage  in  waiting.  Entering  the  carriage  (all  four 
of  us)  we  drove  rapidly  to  Willard's  Hotel,  entering 
on  Fourteenth  Street,  before  it  was  fairly  daylight. 
The  porter  showed  us  into  the  little  receiving  room 
at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  and  at  my  direction  went 
to  the  office  to  have  Mr.  Lincoln  assigned  a  room. 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  '  39 

We  had  not  been  in  the  hotel  more  than  two 
minutes  before  Governor  Seward  hurriedly  entered, 
much  out  of  breath  and  somewhat  chasfrined  to 
think  he  had  not  been  up  in  season  to  be  at  the 
depot  on  the  arrival  of  the  train.  The  meeting  of 
those  two  great  men  under  the  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances which  surrounded  them  was  full  of  emo- 
tion and  thankfulness.  I  soon  took  my  leave,  but 
not  before  promising  Governor  Seward  that  I  would 
take  breakfast  with  him  at  eight  o'clock  ;  and  as  I 
passed  out  the  outside  door  the  Irish  porter  said  to 
me  with  a  smilinof  face  : 

"  And  by  faith  it  is  you  who  have  brought  us  a 
Prisidint." 

At  eight  the  Governor  and  I  sat  down  to  a  simple 
and  relishing  breakfast.  We  had  been  relieved  of 
a  load  of  anxiety  almost  too  great  to  bear.  The 
President  had  reached  Washington  safely  and  our 
spirits  were  exalted,  and  with  a  sense  of  great  satis- 
faction we  sipped  our  delicious  coffee  and  loaded 
our  plates  with  the  first  run  of  Potomac  shad, 

Mr.  Blaine,  in  his  Twenty  Years  of  Congress, 
has  been  led  into  an  error  in  speaking  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  Lincoln  reached  Washineton.  He 
says : 

"  He  reached  Washington  by  a  night  journey 
taken  secretly,  much  against  his  own  will  and  to  his 
subsequent    chagrin    and    mortification,    but    urged 


40  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

upon  him  by  the  advice  of  those  in  whose  advice 
and  wisdom  he  was  forced  to  confide." 

The  only  truth  in  the  statement  is  that  he 
"■  reached  Washington  by  a  night  journey  taken 
secretly." 

I  was  the  first  man  to  see  him  after  his  arrival  in 
Washington  and  talk  with  him  of  the  incidents  of 
his  journey,  and  I  know  he  was  neither  "mortified" 
nor  "  chagrined  "  at  the  manner  in  which  he  reached 
Washington.  He  expressed  to  me  in  the  warmest 
terms  his  satisfaction  at  the  complete  success  of  his 
journey ;  and  I  have  it  from  persons  who  were  about 
him  in  Philadelphia  and  Harrisburg  that  the  plan 
agreed  upon  met  his  hearty  approval,  and  he  ex- 
pressed a  cheerful  willingness  to  adapt  himself  to 
the  novel  circumstances.  I  do  not  believe  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  ever  expressed  a  regret  that  he  had  not, 
"  according  to  his  own  desire,  gone  through  Balti- 
more in  open  day,"  etc.  It  is  safe  to  say  he  never 
had  any  such  "desire."  His  own  detective,  Pin- 
kerton,  a  man  who  had  his  entire  confidence,  had 
been  some  time  in  Baltimore,  with  several  members 
of  his  force,  in  unraveling  rebel  plots,  produced  to 
him  the  most  conclusive  evidence  of  a  conspiracy  to 
assassinate  him.  General  Scott's  detectives  had  dis- 
covered the  same  thing,  and  there  was  a  great  deal 
of  individual  testimony  tending  to  establish  the  same 
fact.     While  Mr.  Lincoln  would  have  confronted  any 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  4 1 

danger  in  the  performance  of  duty,  he  was  not  a 
man  given  to  bravado  and  quixotic  schemes,  and 
what  he  subsequently  stated  touching  this  matter 
comprises  really  all  there  is  in  it.      He  declared  : 

"  I  did  not  believe  then,  nor  do  I  now  believe  I 
should  have  been  assassinated  had  I  gone  through 
Baltimore  as  first  contemplated,  but  /  thought  it 
wise  to  run  no  risk  zvhere  no  risk  was  necessary.''  ^ 

In  the  same  paragraph  Mr.  Blaine  says,  that  "  it 
must  be  creditable  to  the  administration  of  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan that  ample  provision  had  been  made  for  the 
protection  of  the  rightful  ruler  of  the  nation  "  (p. 
240).  If  Mr.  Blaine  means  by  this  that  Mr.  Bu- 
chanan, driven  by  public  indignation,  had  ordered 
a  few  straggling  companies  of  regular  infantry  to 
Washington,  that  is  one  thing ;  but  if  he  referred  to 
the  protection  of  the  "rightful  ruler"  of  the  nation 
in  getting  to  Washington,  his  good  faith  was  imposed 
upon.  I  was  in  a  position  to  know  all  that  was  going 
on  in  relation  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  journey  to  Washing- 
ton, and  I  never  heard  it  suggested  or  hinted  that  Mr. 
Buchanan  occupied  himself  with  that  matter.  I  am 
satisfied  he  had  no  more  knowledge  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
movements  than  those  of  "  the  man  in  the  moon." 

I  cannot  here  recount  all  Mr.  Lincoln's  acts  of 
kindness  to  me  while  President.  He  always  seemed 
anxious    to  gratify  me,   and    I   can    recollect   of    no 

*  Lossing's  Pictorial  History  of  the  Rebellion,  vol.  i.,  p.  279. 


42  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

single  favor  that  I  asked  of  him  that  he  did  not 
cheerfully  accord.  I  will  mention  a  simple  incident. 
In  the  fall  of  1863,  my  brother,  Gen.  Washburne, 
of  Wisconsin,  was  stationed  at  a  most  unhealthy 
camp  at  Helena,  Arkansas.  He  was  taken  danger- 
ously sick  with  malarial  dysentery,  and  there  was 
little  prospect  of  his  recovery  unless  he  could  be 
removed  to  some  healthier  location.  I  wrote  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  briefly,  asking  for  a  leave  of  absence  for 
him  for  cause  of  health,  and  in  due  time  I  received 
the  following  reply  : 

"  Private  and  Confidential. 

Executive  Mansion,       ) 
Washington,  Oct.  26,  1863.  f 

"Hon.  E.  B.  Washburne: 

''My  dear  Sir: — Yours  of  the  12th  has  been  in 
my  hands  several  days.  Inclosed  I  send  a  leave  of 
absence  for  your  brother,  in  as  good  form  as  I  think 
I  can  safely  put  it.  Without  knowing  whether  he 
would  accept  it,  I  have  tendered  the  collectorship  of 
Portland,  Maine,  to  your  other  brother,  the  Governor. 

"Thanks  to  both  you  and  our  friend  Campbell  for 
your  kind  words  and  intentions.  A  second  term 
would  be  a  great  honor,  and  a  great  labor,  which 
together,  perhaps,  I  would  not  decline,  if  tendered. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE.  ^.^ 

This  last  paragraph  refers  to  a  letter  of  the  Hon. 
Thompson  Campbell,  whom  I  have  before  referred  to 
in  this  essay,  and  in  which  we  asked  permission  to 
bring  him  forward  as  a  candidate  for  a  re-election. 

But  I  must  bring  my  contribution  to  a  close.  The 
rebellion,  in  April,  1865,  was  fast  approaching  an  end. 
Having  expressed  a  desire  to  be  at  the  front,  wher- 
ever that  might  be,  when  the  hour  of  its  final  collapse 
might  come  finally  to  strike.  General  Grant  had 
given  me  a  pass  of  the  broadest  character,  to  go  any- 
where in  the  Union  lines. 

The  news  of  the  fall  of  Richmond  reached  Galena 
at  eleven  o'clock  Monday  morning,  April  3,  1865, 
I  took  the  train  "for  the  front"  at  five  r.M.,  and 
arrived  in  Washington  Thursday  morning,  April 
6th.  I  found  that  the  President,  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and 
a  party  of  friends  had  left  on  an  excursion  for  Fort- 
ress Monroe,  City  Point,  and  Richmond.  Mr.  Blaine 
joined  me,  and  we  made  the  trip  together  to 
City  Point.  On  arriving  there,  late  Friday  after- 
noon, we  found  the  President  and  party  had  returned 
from  Richmond,  and  were  on  their  steamer,  the 
Rwer  Queen,  which  was  to  remain  at  City  Point 
over  night.  In  the  evening  Mr.  Blaine  and  myself 
went  on  board  the  steamer  to  pay  our  respects  to 
the  President.  I  never  passed  a  more  delightful 
evening.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  perfect  health  and  in 
exuberant  spirits.       His  relation  of  his  experiences 


44  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  of  all  he  saw  at  Richmond  had  all  of  that  quaint- 
ness  and  originality  for  which  he  was  distinguished. 
Full  of  anecdote  and  reminiscence,  he  never  flagged 
during;  the  whole  evening^.  His  son  Robert  was  in 
the  military  service  and  with  the  advancing  army, 
and  knowing  that  I  was  bound  for  the  "  front  "  the 
next  morning,  he  said  to  me  : 

"  I  believe  I  will  drop  Robert  a  line  if  you  will 
take  it.  I  will  hand  it  to  you  in  the  morning  before 
you  start." 

I  went  to  the  wharf  the  next  morning,  and  soon 
Mr.  Lincoln  came  ashore  from  his  steamer,  with  the 
letter  in  his  hand.  He  was  erect  and  buoyant,  and 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  never  seen  him  look  so 
great  and  grand.  After  a  few  words  of  conversation, 
he  handed  me  the  letter,  and  I  bid  him  what  proved 
to  be,  alas  !  -Sl  final  adieu.  I  made  my  way  with  all 
diligence  and  through  much  tribulation  to  the 
"  front,"  and  arrived  at  Appomattox  in  season  to  see 
the  final  surrender  of  the  Army  of  Northern  Vir- 
ginia, and  General  Lee  and  his  associate  generals 
prisoners  of  war. 

Returning  to  City  Point,  I  found  awaiting  .me 
there  a  small  Government  steamer  which  was  to  take 
me  to  Washington.  On  arriving  there  I  met  the 
most  terrible  news  that  had  ever  shocked  the  civilized 
world  :  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  assassinated.  That  was 
Saturday  night,  April   15,    1865.     I  gave  directions 


BY  ELIHU  B.    WASHBURNE. 


45 


to  have  the  steamer  proceed  directly  to  Washington, 
where  I  arrived  early  Monday  morning,  April  17th, 
and  in  season  to  participate  in  the  stupendous  prep- 
arations to  do  honor  to  the  memory  of  the  dead 
President. 

I  was  on  the  Congressional  Committee  to  escort 
his  remains  to  Springfield,  Illinois,  where  I  followed 


his  colossal  hearse  to  the  sfrave. 


E.    B.  WASHBURNE. 


III. 
George  W.  Julian. 

MY  first  meeting  with   Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  Jan- 
uary, 1 86 1,  when   I  visited  him  at  his  home 
in  Springfield. 

I  had  a  curiosity  to  see  the  famous  "  rail-splitter," 
as  he  was  then  familiarly  called,  and  as  a  member- 
elect  of  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress  I  desired  to 
form  some  acquaintance  with  the  man  who  was  des- 
tined to  play  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  impending 
national  crisis.  Although  I  had  zealously  supported 
him  in  the  canvass,  and  was  strongly  impressed  by 
the  grasp  of  thought  and  aptness  of  expression  which 
marked  his  great  debate  with  Douglas,  yet,  as  a 
thorouQ^h-croinor  Free  Soiler  and  a  member  of  the 
Radical  wing  of  Republicanism,  my  prepossessions 
were  against  him.  He  was  a  Kentuckian,  and  a 
conservative  Whig,  who  had  supported  General 
Taylor  in  1848,  and  General  Scott  four  years  later, 
when  the  Whig  party  finally  sacrificed  both  its  char- 
acter and  its  life  on  the  altar  of  slavery.  His  nomi- 
nation, moreover,  had  been  secured  through  the 
diplomacy  of  conservative  Republicans,  whose  mor- 


48  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  IINCOLN 

bid  dread  of  "  abolitionism  "  unfitted  them,  as  I  be- 
lieved, for  leadership  in  the  battle  with  slavery  which 
had  now  become  inevitable,  while  the  defeat  of  Mr. 
Seward  had  been  to  me  a  severe  disappointment  and 
a  real  personal  grief.  Still,  I  did  not  wish  to  do  Mr. 
Lincoln  the  slightest  injustice,  while  I  hoped  and  be- 
lieved his  courage  and  firmness  would  prove  equal  to 
the  emergency. 

On  meeting  him,  I  found  him  far  better-looking 
than  the  campaign  pictures  had  represented.  These, 
as  a  general  rule,  were  wretched  caricatures.  His 
face,  when  lighted  up  in  conversation,  was  not  un- 
handsome, and  the  kindly  and  winning  tones  of  his 
voice  pleaded  for  him,  as  did  the  smile  which  played 
about  his  rugged  features.  He  was  full  of  anecdote 
and  humor,  and  readily  found  his  way  to  the  hearts 
of  those  who  enjoyed  a  welcome  to  his  fireside.  His 
face,  however,  was  sometimes  marked  by  that  touch- 
ing expression  of  sadness  which  became  so  generally 
noticeable  in  the  following  years.  I  was  much  pleased 
with  our  first  Republican  Executive,  and  returned 
home  more  fully  inspired  than  ever  with  the  purpose 
to  sustain  him  to  the  utmost  in  facing  the  duties  of 
his  great  ofiice. 

The  chief  purpose  of  this  visit,  however,  related 
to  another  matter.  The  rumor  was  then  current  and 
generally  credited,  that  Simon  Cameron  and  Caleb 
B.  Smith  were  to  be  made  Cabinet  ministers,  and  I 


BY  GEORGE   W.    JULIAN.  49 

desired  to  enter  my  protest  against  such  a  movement. 
Mr.  Lincoln  heard  me  patiently,  but  made  no  com- 
mittal ;  and  the  subsequent  selection  of  these  repre- 
sentatives of  Pennsylvania  and  Indiana  Republican- 
ism, along  with  Seward  and  Chase,  illustrated  the 
natural  tendency  of  his  mind  to  mediate  between 
opposing  forces.  This  was  further  illustrated  a  little 
later  when  some  of  his  old  Whig  friends  pressed  the 
appointment  of  an  incompetent  and  unfit  man  for  an 
important  position.  When  I  remonstrated  against 
it,  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  :  "  There  is  much  force  in 
what  you  say,  but,  in  the  balancing  of  matters,  I 
guess  I  shall  have  to  appoint  him."  This  "balanc- 
ing of  matters  "  was  a  source  of  infinite  vexation 
during  his  administration,  as  it  has  been  to  his  suc- 
cessors ;  but  it  was  then  easier  to  criticise  this  policy 
than  to  point  the  way  to  any  practicable  method  of 
avoiding  it. 

I  did  not  see  Mr.  Lincoln  again  till  the  day  of  his 
inauguration,  when  he  entered  the  Senate-chamber 
arm-in-arm  with  Mr.  Buchanan.  The  latter  was  so 
withered  and  bowed  with  age  that  in  contrast  with 
the  towering  form  of  his  successor  he  seemed  little 
more  than  half  a  man.  The  public  curiosity  to  see 
the  President-elect  reached  its  climax  as  he  made  his 
appearance  on  the  east  portico  of  the  Capitol.  All 
sorts  of  stories  had  been  told  and  believed  about 
his   personal    appearance.     His  character  had  been 

4 


50  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

grossly  misrepresented  and  maligned  in  both  sections 
of  the  Union  ;  and  the  critical  condition  of  the  coun- 
try naturally  whetted  the  appetite  of  m.en  of  all  par- 
ties to  see  and  hear  the  man  who  was  now  the  central 
figure  of  the  Republic.  The  tone  of  moderation, 
tenderness,  and  good-will  which  breathed  through  his 
inaugural  speech  made  a  profound  impression  in  his 
favor ;  while  his  voice,  though  not  very  strong  or 
full-toned,  rang  out  over  the  acres  of  people  before 
him  with  surprising  distinctness,  and,  I  think,  was 
heard  in  the  remotest  parts  of  his  audience. 

The  pressure  for  office  during  the  first  few  months 
of  the  new  administration  was  utterly  unprecedented 
and  beggared  all  description.  It  was  a  sort  of  epi- 
demic, and  Mr.  Lincoln,  at  times,  was  perfectly  ap- 
palled by  it.  It  gave  him  no  pause,  but  pursued  him 
remorselessly  night  and  day  ;  and  there  Vv^ere  mo- 
ments when  his  face  was  the  picture  of  an  indescrib- 
able weariness  and  despair.  It  jarred  upon  his  sen- 
timent of  patriotism,  when  the  country  was  just 
entering  upon  the  awful  struggle  for  its  life,  and 
seemed  to  make  him  sick  at  heart.  Sometimes  he 
lost  his  temper.  An  instance  of  this  occurred  soon 
after  his  inauguration,  which  also  illustrates  his  fidel- 
ity to  his  friends.  A  delegation  of  California  Re- 
publicans called  on  him  with  a  proposed  political 
slate  covering  the  chief  offices  on  the  Pacific  coast. 
Their  programme  was  opposed,  in  part,  by  Senator 


BY  GEORGE   W.    JULIAN.  5  I 

Baker,  of  Oregon,  who  quite  naturally  claimed  the 
right  to  be  consulted  respecting  the  patronage  of 
his  section  of  the  Union.  Some  of  the  Californians 
very  unwisely  sought  the  accomplishment  of  their 
purpose  by  assailing  both  the  public  and  private 
<:haracter  of  the  Oregon  Senator,  who  was  an  old- 
time  friend  of  the  President.  The  anger  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  kindled  instantly,  and  blazed  forth  with 
such  vehemence  and  intensity  that  everybody  present 
quailed  before  it.  His  wrath  was  simply  terrible,  as 
he  put  his  foot  down  and  told  the  delegation  that 
Senator  Baker  was  his  friend  ;  that  he  would  permit 
no  man  to  assail  him  in  his  presence  ;  and  that  it 
was  not  possible  for  them  to  accomplish  their  pur- 
pose by  any  such  methods.  The  result  was  that  the 
charges  against  Senator  Baker  were  summarily  with- 
drawn and  apologized  for,  and  such  a  disposition  of 
the  offices  on  the  Pacific  slope  finally  made  as  proved 
satisfactory  to  all  parties.  These  facts  I  learned  at 
the  time  from  an  intimate  personal  friend  who  formed 
a  part  of  the  delegation,  and  who  was  afterward 
honored  by  an  important  appointment  in  his  State. 

This  is  not  the  only  case  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  lost 
his  habitual  good  temper.  After  my  nomination  for 
re-election  in  the  year  1864,  Mr.  Holloway,  who  was 
holding  the  position  of  Commissioner  of  Patents,  and 
was  one  of  the  editors  of  a  Republican  newspaper  in 
my  district,  refused  to  recognize  me  as  the  party  can- 


52  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

didate,  and  kept  the  name  of  my  defeated  competi- 
tor standing  in  his  paper.  It  threatened  discord 
and  mischief,  and  I  went  to  the  President  with 
these  facts,  and  on  the  strength  of  them  asked  for 
Mr.  Holloway's  removal  from  office. 

"Your  nomination,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "is  as  bind- 
ing on  Republicans  as  mine,  and  you  can  rest  assured 
that  Mr.  Holloway  shall  support  you,  openly  and 
unconditionally,  or  lose  his  head." 

This  was  entirely  satisfactory,  but  after  waiting  a 
week  or  two  for  the  announcement  of  my  name,  I 
returned  to  the  President  with  the  information  that 
Mr.  Holloway  was  still  keeping  up  his  fight,  and  that 
I  had  come  to  ask  of  him  decisive  measures.  I  saw 
in  an  instant  that  his  ire  was  roused.  He  ranor  the 
bell  for  his  messenger,  and  said  to  him  in  a  very  ex- 
cited and  emphatic  way, 

"Tell  Mr.  Holloway  to  come  to  me  !" 

The  messenger  hesitated,  looking  somewhat  sur- 
prised and  bewildered,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  said  in  a 
tone  still  more  emphatic, 

"  Tell  Mr.  Holloway  to  come  to  me  !'' 

It  was  perfectly  evident  that  the  business  would 
now  be  attended  to,  and  in  a  few  days  my  name  was 
duly  announced,  and  the  work  of  party  insubordina- 
tion ceased. 

But  the  temper  of  the  President  was  far  more  seri- 
ously tried  early. in  the  year  1862,  touching  the  con- 


BY  GEORGE   W.  JULIAN.  c^ 

duct  of  the  war.  General  McClellan  had  disregarded 
the  general  order  of  the  President,  dated  the  19th  of 
January,  for  a  movement  of  all  our  forces.  He  had 
protested  against  the  order  of  January  31st,  direct- 
ing an  expedition  for  the  purpose  of  seizing  upon  the 
railroad  south-west  of  Manassas  Junction.  He  had 
opposed  all  forward  movements  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  and  again  and  again  refused  to  co-operate 
with  the  Navy  in  breaking  up  the  blockade  of  that 
river.  And  his  movement  early  in  March  in  the 
direction  of  the  enemy  at  Centreville  and  Manassas 
was  undertaken  with  very  great  reluctance,  and  after 
the  enemy  had  evacuated  these  positions.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  clung  to  General  McClellan  with  great  per- 
tinacity and  in  the  face  of  much  popular  clamor,  but 
his  patience  was  now  completely  exhausted,  and  his 
passions  carried  him  by  storm.  According  to  Sen- 
ator Chandler,  from  whom  I  obtained  my  informa- 
tion, the  scene  strikingly  suggested  that  described  by 
Colonel  Lear,  when  General  Washington  received 
the  news  of  St.  Clair's  defeat  by  the  Indians  in  1791. 
I  well  remember  the  delight  and  exultation  of  the 
Michigan  Senator  as  he  related  the  circumstances  to 
me,  and  predicted  the  victory  for  our  arms  which  he 
believed  it  foreshadowed.  "Old  Abe,"  said  he,  "  is 
mad,  and  the  war  will  now  go  on." 

During  the  month  of  January,  1863,  I  called  with 
the  Indiana  delegation  to  see  the  President  respect- 


54  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ing  the  appointment  of  Judge  Otto,  of  Indiana,  as 
Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  He  was  soon 
after  appointed,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  then  only  re- 
sponded to  our  application  by  treating  us  to  four 
anecdotes. 

Senator  Lane  told  me  that  when  he  heard  a  story 
that  pleased  him  he  took  a  memorandum  of  it,  and 
filed  it  away  among  his  papers.  This  was  probably 
true.  At  any  rate,  by  some  method  or  other,  his 
supply  seemed  inexhaustible,  and  always  aptly  avail- 
able. He  entered  into  the  enjoyment  of  his  stories 
with  all  his  heart,  and  completely  lived  over  again 
the  delight  he  had  experienced  in  telling  them  on 
previous  occasions.  When  he  told  a  particularly 
good  story,  and  the  time  came  to  laugh,  he  would 
sometimes  throw  his  left  foot  across  his  right  knee, 
and  clenchinof  his  foot  with  both  hands  and  bending 
forward,  his  whole  frame  seemed  to  be  convulsed 
with  the  effort  to  give  expression  to  his  sensations. 
His  laugh  was  like  that  of  the  hero  of  Sartor  Resar- 
tiis,  "a  laugh  of  the  whole  man,  from  head  to  heel." 
I  believe  his  anecdotes  were  his  Q^reat  solace  and 
safeguard  in  seasons  of  severe  mental  depression.  I 
remember  that  when  I  called  on  him  on  the  2d  of 
July,  1862,  at  the  time  our  forces  were  engaged  in  a 
terrific  conflict  with  the  enemy  near  Richmond,  and 
everybody  was  anxious  as  to  the  result,  he  seemed 
quite  as  placid  as  usual,  and  at  once  yielded  to  his 


J 


BY  GEORGE   IF.  JULIAN.  55 

ruling  passion  for  story-telling.  If  I  had  not  known 
his  peculiarities,  I  should  have  pronounced  him  in- 
capable of  any  deep  earnestness  of  feeling  ;  but  his 
manner  was  so  kindly,  and  so  free  from  the  ordinary 
crookedness  of  the  politician  and  the  vanity  and  self- 
importance  of  official  position,  that  nothing  but  good 
will  was  Inspired  by  his  presence. 

In  March  following  I  called  on  the  President 
respecting  the  appointments  I  had  recommended 
under  the  conscription  law,  and  took  occasion  to  re- 
fer to  the  failure  of  General  Fremont  to  obtain  a 
command.  He  said  he  did  not  know  where  to  place 
him,  and  that  It  reminded  him  of  the  old  man  who 
advised  his  son  to  take  a  wife,  to  which  the  young 
man  responded,  "Whose  wife  shall  I  take?"  He 
proceeded  to  point  out  the  practical  difficulties  In 
the  way  by  referring  to  a  number  of  important  com- 
mands which  might  suit  Fremont,  but  which  could 
only  be  reached  by  removals  he  did  not  wish  to 
make.  I  remarked  that  I  was  very  sorry  if  this  was 
true,  and  that  it  was  unfortunate  for  our  cause,  as  I 
believed  his  restoration  to  duty  would  stir  the  coun- 
try as  no  other  appointment  could.     He  said  : 

"  It  would  stir  the  country  favorably  on  one  side, 
and  stir  It  the  other  way  on  the  other.  It  would 
please  Fremont's  friends,  and  displease  the  conserv- 
atives ;  and  that  Is  all  I  can  see  in  the  stirring  ar- 
gument.     My  proclamation,"  he  added,  "was  to  stir 


56  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  country  ;  but  it  has  done  about  as  much  harm  as 
good." 

These  observations  were  characteristic,  and  show- 
ed how  reluctant  he  still  was  to  turn  away  from  the 
conservative  counsels  he  had  so  long  heeded. 

It  has  often  been  asserted  that  Secretary  Stanton 
ruled  Mr.  Lincoln.  This  is  a  mistake.  The  Secre- 
tary would  frequently  overawe  and  sometimes  brow- 
beat others,  but  he  was  never  imperious  in  dealing 
with  the  President.  This  I  have  from  Mr.  Watson, 
for  some  time  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  and  Mr. 
Whiting,  while  Solicitor  of  the  War  Department. 
Lincoln,  however,  had  the  highest  opinion  of  Stan- 
ton, and  their  relations  were  always  most  kindly. 
The  following  anecdote  illustrates  the  character  of 
the  two  men,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  method  of  dealing 
with  a  dilemma.  It  is  related  that  a  committee  of 
Western  men,  headed  by  Mr.  Lovejoy,  procured 
from  the  President  an  important  order  looking  to 
the  exchange  of  Eastern  and  Western  soldiers,  with 
a  view  to  more  effective  work.  Repairing  to  the 
office  of  the  Secretary,  Mr.  Lovejoy  explained  the 
scheme,  as  he  had  done  before  to  the  President, 
but  was  met  by  a  flat  refusal. 

"But  we  have  the  President's  order,  sir,"  said 
Lovejoy. 

"Did  Lincoln  give  you  an  order  of  that  kind?" 
said  Stanton. 


BY  GEORGE   W.    JULIAN.  cy 

"  He  did,  sir." 

"  Then  he  is  a  d d  fool,"  said  the  irate  Sec- 
retary. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  the  President  is  a  d d 

fool  ?  "  asked  Lovejoy,  in  amazement. 

"  Yes,  sir,  if  he  gave  you  such  an  order  as  that." 

The  bewildered  Congressman  from  Illinois  betook 
himself  at  once  to  the  President,  and  related  the  re- 
sult of  his  conference. 

"Did  Stanton  say  I  was  a  d d  fool?"  asked 

Lincoln,  at  the  close  of  the  recital. 

"  He  did,  sir;  and  repeated  it." 

After  a  moment's  pause,  and  looking  up,  the  Pres- 
ident said  : 

"If  Stanton  said  I  was  a  d d  fool,  then  I  must 

be  one,  for  he  is  nearly  always  right,  and  generally 
says  what  he  means.      I  will  step  over  and  see  him." 

Notwithstanding  Mr.  Lincoln's  proverbial  caution 
and  diplomacy  in  dealing  with  difficult  problems,  he 
was  completely  armed  with  the  courage  of  his  con- 
victions, after  his  conclusions  had  been  carefully  ma- 
tured. No  man  was  more  ready  to  take  the  respon- 
sibility when  his  sense  of  duty  commanded  him. 
This  was  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  summer  of 
1862,  when  he  refused  to  sign  the  confiscation  act  of 
the  17th  of  July,  without  a  modification  first  made 
exempting  the  fee  of  rebel  land-owners  from  its  op- 
eration.    Congress  was  obliged  to  make  the  modifi- 


58  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

cation  required  as  the  only  means  of  securing  the 
important  advantages  of  other  features  of  the  meas- 
ure ;  but  the  action  of  the  President  was  inexpressi- 
bly provoking  to  a  large  majority  of  Congress.  It 
was  bitterly  denounced  as  an  anti-Republican  dis- 
crimination between  real  and  personal  property, 
when  the  nation  was  struggling  for  its  life  against 
a  rebellious  aristocracy  founded  on  the  monopoly  of 
land  and  the  ownership  of  negroes.  The  President 
was  charged  with  thus  prolonging  the  war  and  ag- 
gravating its  cost  by  paralyzing  one  of  the  most  po- 
tent means  of  putting  down  the  rebellion,  and  pur- 
posely leaving  the  owners  of  large  estates  in  full 
possession  of  their  lands  at  the  end  of  the  struggle. 
He  was  arraigned  as  the  deliberate  betrayer  of  the 
freedmen  and  poor  whites,  who  had  been  friendly  to 
the  Union,  while  the  confiscation  of  life-estates  as  a 
war  measure  could  prove  of  no  practical  advantage 
to  the  government  or  disadvantage  to  the  enemy. 

The  popular  hostility  to  the  President  at  this  time 
cannot  be  described,  and  was  wholly  without  prece- 
dent, and  the  opposition  to  him  in  Congress  was 
still  more  intense.  But  Mr.  Lincoln  accepted  the 
situation,  and  patiently  abode  his  time. 

Two  years  later,  when  the  fortunes  of  the  war  and 
his  own  reflections  had  wrought  a  change  in  his  opin- 
ion, his  frankness  and  courasfe  in  avowinor  it  were 
as  creditable  to  him  as  had  been  his  firmness  in  fac- 


BY  GEORGE   IV.    JULIA  AT.  ^9 

ing-  a  hostile  public.  Having  heard  of  this  change,  I 
called  to  see  him  on  the  2d  of  July,  1864,  and  asked 
him  if  I  might  say  to  the  people  that  what  I  had 
learned  on  this  subject  was  true,  assuring  him  that  I 
would  make  a  far  better  fi^ht  for  our  cause  if  he 
would  permit  me  to  do  so.  He  replied  that  when  he 
prepared  his  veto  of  our  law  on  the  subject  two 
years  before  he  had  not  examined  the  matter  thor- 
oughly, but  that  on  further  reflection,  and  on  read- 
ing Solicitor  Whiting's  law  argument,  he  had  changed 
his  view,  and  would  now  sign  a  bill  striking  at  the 
fee  of  rebel  land-holders,  if  we  would  send  it  to  him. 
I  was  much  gratified  by  this  statement,  which  was 
of  great  service  to  the  cause  in  the  canvass  ;  but,  un- 
fortunately, constitutional  scruples  respecting  such 
legislation  had  gained  ground,  and  although  both 
houses  of  Congress  at  different  times  endorsed  the 
measure,  it  never  became  a  law,  owing  to  unavoid- 
able differences  between  the  President  and  Conofress 
on  the  question  of  reconstruction. 

Perhaps  the  most  charming  trait  in  the  character 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  his  geniality.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  occasional  seasons  of  deep  depression,  his 
nature  was  all  sunshine.  His  presence  seemed  a 
message  of  peace  and  good-will.  Early  in  the  war, 
after  the  Hutchinson  family  had  been  ordered  out  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  by  General  McClellan  for 
the  offense  of  singing  Whittier's  songs,  he  repeated- 


6o  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ly  welcomed  them  to  the  White  House  and  listened 
to  the  music  which  had  been  considered  detrimental 
to  the  service.  He  was  delighted  with  it,  selecting 
his  favorite  songs,  and  testifying  his  satisfaction  by 
alternate  lauorhter  and  tears.  He  said  that  if  these 
were  the  songs  they  had  been  singing,  he  wished 
them  to  continue  in  the  business,  and  that  they 
should  have  a  pass  wherever  they  desired  to  go. 

Mr.  Lincoln  used  to  attend  the  rousing  anti- 
slavery  meetings  that  were  held  in  the  Smithsonian 
Institute,  in  the  fall  and  winter  of  1 86 1-2,  which 
were  addressed  by  several  of  the  leading  orators  of 
Abolitionism.  At  one  of  these  meetings,  Horace 
Greeley  delivered  a  written  address,  which  Mr.  Lin- 
coln listened  to  and  very  greatly  admired.  I  sat  by 
his  side,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  discourse  he 
said  to  me : 

"That  address  is  full  of  good  thoughts,  and  I 
would  like  to  take  the  manuscript  home  with  me 
and  carefully  read  it  over  some  Sunday." 

During  the  progress  of  the  war,  he  and  Mr.  Gree- 
ley had  some  radical  difference  of  opinion  about  its 
prosecution  and  the  duty  of  the  government  in  deal- 
ing with  the  question  of  slavery  ;  but  he  had,  I  know, 
the  most  profound  personal  respect  for  Mr.  Greeley, 
and  placed  the  highest  estimate  upon  his  services  as 
an  independent  writer  and  thinker. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  resentments.     He  had  kind 


BY  GEORGE   W.  JULIAN.  6 1 

words  for  men  who  bitterly  assailed  him.  He  joined 
in  no  outcry  against  men  in  civil  or  military  life  who 
went  astray.  When  the  Republicans  were  denounc- 
ing Andrew  Johnson  after  his  maudlin  speech  on 
the  4th  of  March,  1865,  he  only  said,  "  Poor  Andy," 
and  expressed  the  charitable  hope  that  he  would 
profit  by  his  dreadful  mistake. 

Few  subjects  have  been  more  debated  and  less 
understood  than  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  himself  opposed  to  the  measure, 
and  when  he  very  reluctantly  issued  the  preliminary 
proclamation  in  September,  1862,  he  wished  it  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  the  deportation  of  the  slaves 
was,  in  his  mind,  inseparably  connected  with  the 
policy.  Like  Mr.  Clay  and  other  prominent  leaders 
of  the  old  Whig  party,  he  believed  in  colonization, 
and  that  the  separation  of  the  two  races  was  neces- 
sary to  the  welfare  of  both.  He  was  at  that  time 
pressing  upon  the  attention  of  Congress  a  scheme  of 
colonization  in  Chiriqui,  in  Central  America,  which 
Senator  Pomeroy  espoused  with  great  zeal,  and  in 
which  he  had  the  favor  of  a  majority  of  the  Cabinet, 
including  Secretary  Smith,  who  warmly  indorsed  the 
project.  Subsequent  developments,  however,  proved 
that  it  was  simply  an  organization  for  land-stealing 
and  plunder,  and  it  was  abandoned  ;  but  it  is  by  no 
means  certain  that  if  the  President  had  foreseen  this 
fact  his  preliminary  notice  to  the  rebels  would  have 


62  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOIN 

been  given.  There  are  strong  reasons  for  saying 
that  he  doubted  his  right  to  emancipate  under  the 
war  power,  and  he  doubtless  meant  what  he  said 
when  he  compared  an  Executive  order  to  that  effect 
to  "the  Pope's  Bull  against  the  comet."  In  discuss- 
ing the  question,  he  used  to  liken  the  case  to  that  of 
the  boy  who,  when  asked  how  many  legs  his  calf 
would  have  if  he  called  its  tail  a  leg,  replied,  "  Five," 
to  which  the  prompt  response  was  made  that  calling 
the  tail  a  leg  would  not  make  it  a  leg. 

But  the  right  to  emancipate  by  such  an  edict  and 
the  legal  effect  of  it  when  issued  were  not  the  only 
questions  with  which  the  President  was  obliged  to 
deal.  The  demand  for  it  was  wide-spread  and 
rapidly  extending  in  the  Republican  party.  The 
popular  current  had  become  irresistible.  The  power 
to  issue  it  was  taken  for  granted.  All  doubts  on  the 
subject  were  consumed  in  the  burning  desire  of  the 
people,  or  forgotten  in  the  travail  of  war.  The 
anti-slavery  element  was  becoming  more  and  more 
impatient  and  impetuous.  Opposition  to  that  ele- 
ment now  involved  more  serious  consequences  than 
offending  the  Border  States.  Mr.  Lincoln  feared 
that  enlistments  would  cease,  and  that  Congress 
would  even  refuse  the  necessary  supplies  to  carry 
on  the  war,  if  he  declined  any  longer  to  place  it 
on  a  clearly  defined  antislavery  basis.  He  finally 
yielded  to  this  pressure,  and  in  doing  so  he  became 


BV  GEORGE   W.  JULIAN.  63 

the  liberator  of  the  slaves  through  the  triumph  of 
our  arms  which  it  insured. 

The  authority  to  emancipate  under  the  war  power 
was  therefore  a  side  issue.  It  undoubtedly  existed, 
but  it  could  only  be  asserted  over  territory  occupied 
by  our  armies.  Each  commanding  general,  as  fast 
as  our  flag  advanced,  could  have  offered  freedom  to 
the  slaves,  as  could  the  President  himself.  This  was 
the  view  of  Secretary  Chase.  A  paper  proclamation 
of  freedom,  as  to  States  in  the  power  of  the  enemy, 
could  have  no  more  validity  than  a  paper  blockade 
of  their  coast.  Mr.  Lincoln's  proclamation  did  not 
apply  to  the  Border  States,  which  were  loyal,  and 
in  which  slavery  was  of  course  untouched.  It  did 
not  pretend  to  operate  upon  the  slaves  in  other 
large  districts,  in  which  it  would  have  been  effective 
at  once,  but  studiously  excluded  them,  while  it  ap- 
plied mainly  to  States  and  parts  of  States  within  the 
military  occupation  of  the  enemy,  where  it  was  neces- 
sarily void. 

But  even  if  the  proclamation  could  have  given 
freedom  to  the  slaves  according  to  its  scope,  their 
permanent  enfranchisement  would  not  have  been 
secured,  because  the  status  of  slavery,  as  it  existed 
under  the  local  laws  of  the  States  prior  to  the  war, 
would  have  remained  the  same  after  the  re-establish- 
ment of  peace.  All  emancipated  slaves  found  in  those 
States,  or  returning  to  them,  would  have  been  sub- 


64  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ject  to  slavery  as  before,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
no  military  proclamation  could  operate  to  abolish 
their  municipal  laws.  Nothing  short  of  a  constitu- 
tional amendment  could  at  once  give  freedom  to  our 
black  millions  and  make  their  re-enslavement  impos- 
sible ;  and  "  this,"  as  Mr.  Lincoln  declared  in  ear- 
nestly urging  its  adoption,  "  is  a  king's-cure  for  all 
evils.  It  winds  the  whole  thing  up."  All  this  is 
now  attested  by  very  high  authorities  on  interna- 
tional and  constitutional  law ;  and  while  it  takes 
nothing  from  the  glory  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  the  great 
Emancipator,  it  shows  how  wisely  he  employed  a 
splendid  popular  delusion  in  the  salvation  of  his 
country.  His  proclamation  had  no  present  legal 
effect  within  territory  not  under  the  control  of  our 
arms  ;  but  as  an  expression  of  the  spirit  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  policy  of  the  administration,  it  had  be- 
come both  a  moral  and  a  military  necessity.  The 
simple  truth  should  now  be  told,  and  the  honor,  due 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  be  placed  upon  its  just  foundation. 

But  no  picture  of  Abraham  Lincoln  which  leaves 
out  his  private  life  can  do  him  justice.  Every  linea- 
ment of  his  grand  public  career  should  have  the  set- 
ting of  his  rare  personal  worth.  In  all  the  qualities 
that  go  to  make  up  character,  he  was  a  thoroughly 
genuine  man.  His  sense  of  justice  was  perfect  and 
ever  present.  His  integrity  was  second  only  to  that 
of  Washington,  and  his  ambition  as  stainless.      His 


BY  GEORGE   IV.  JULIAN.  65 

sympathy  for  the  unfortunate  and  the  down-trodden 
earned  for  him  the  fitting  title  of  "  Father  Abra- 
ham," and  made  him  the  idol  of  the  common  people. 
His  devotion  to  wife  and  children  was  as  abiding 
and  unbounded  as  his  love  of  country,  and  his  hap- 
piest hours  in  the  White  House  were  spent  in  the 
companionship  of  his  little  boy  "  Tad,"  who  used  to 
gambol  about  his  knees.  When  death  entered  his 
household  his  sorrow  was  so  consuming  that  it  could 
only  be  measured  by  the  singular  depth  and  intensity 
of  his  love.  He  was  human  in  the  best  and  highest 
sense  of  the  word.  The  record  of  too  many  of  our 
famous  men  has  been  marred  by  personal  vices ;  but 
in  him,  were  happily  blended  the  qualities  which 
adorn  public  station  and  dignify  private  life. 

GEORGE  W.  JULIAN. 


IV. 

R.  E.  Fenton. 

MY  relations  with  President  Lincoln  were  cor- 
dial. I  was  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  when  he  entered  upon  the  duties 
of  President,  and  remained  in  the  House  until 
December,  1864,  when  I  resigned  my  seat  for  the 
office  of  Governor  of  New  York. 

In  the  summer  and  fall  of  1864 — during  the 
Presidential  canvass — ^there  was  great  anxiety  in 
respect  to  the  decision  of  the  people  at  the  ballot- 
box,  as  well  as  to  our  varying  success  on  the 
field  of  arms.  The  war  for  the  Union  had  pros- 
pered slowly.  Determining  results  had  not  been 
realized.  Its  frightful  proportions  were  more  ap- 
parent as  the  days  increased.  Patriotic  people 
became  restless.  Many  of  our  Republican  friends 
thought  the  war  was  not  prosecuted  with  sufficient 
vigor  and  wisdom.  Party  spirit  was  embittered  by 
conflicting  sympathies,  and  severe  criticisms  were 
ventured  touching  the  conduct  of  the  war.  The 
Democratic  party  had  in  terms  even  declared  it  to 
be  "  a  failure."     To  add  intensity  to  the  anxiety  on 


68  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  Republican  side  at  this  condition  of  affairs,  the 
government  of  New  York  State  was  in  Democratic 
hands.  Our  principal  commercial  port,  our  great 
city  and  center  of  money  and  exchange,  was  within 
the  boundary  of  the  State,  and  State  and  local  au- 
thorities, or  the  practices  under  them,  might  at  any 
time  seriously  embarrass  the  General  Government 
in  the  farther  prosecution  of  the  war.  Hence,  New 
York  was  a  stake  of  mighty  import.  Each  party 
was  certain  to  exert  itself  to  the  utmost.  And,  even 
beyond  the  electoral  vote  of  the  State  as  a  possible 
factor  in  merely  deciding  who  should  be  President, 
the  case  was  surrounded  with  the  gravest  concern, 
especially  for  those  in  charge  of  the  government, 
and  whose  war  purposes  and  policy  were  clearly 
defined. 

On  the  2  2d  day  of  August,  I  received  a  telegram 
from  Mr.  John  G.  Nicolay,  Private  Secretary,  saying 
that  the  President  desired  to  see  me.  I  arrived  in 
Washington  next  day.  The  President,  speaking  to 
me  said,  in  language  as  nearly  as  I  can  remember : 
"You  are  to  be  nominated  by  our  folks  for  Gov- 
ernor of  your  State.  Seymour  of  course  will  be  the 
Democratic  nominee.  You  will  have  a  hard  fight. 
I  am  very  desirous  that  you  should  win  the  battle. 
New  York  should  be  on  our  side  by  honest  posses- 
sion. There  is  some  trouble  among  our  folks  over 
there,  which  we  must  try  and  manage.     Or,  rather, 


BY  R.    E.    FEN  TON.  69 

there  is  one  man  who  may  give  us  trouble,  because 
of  his  indifference,  if  in  no  other  way.  He  has  great 
influence,  and  his  feelings  may  be  reflected  in  many 
of  his  friends.  We  must  have  his  counsel  and  co- 
operation if  possible.  This,  in  one  sense,  is  more 
important  to  you  than  to  me,  I  think,  for  I  should 
rather  expect  to  get  on  without  New  York,  but  you 
can't.  But  in  a  larger  sense  than  what  is  merely 
personal  to  myself,  I  am  anxious  for  New  York,  and 
we  must  put  our  heads  together  and  see  if  the  mat- 
ter can't  be  fixed." 

In  a  word,  Mr.  Thurlow  Weed  was  dissatisfied 
with  the  disposition  of  the  federal  patronage  in  the 
city  of  New  York.  Especially  he  felt  that  Mr. 
Simeon  Draper,  Collector  of  the  Port,  and  Mr. 
Rufus  F.  Andrews,  Surveyor,  were  unfriendly  to 
him,  and  that  he  had  no  voice  in  those  places  of 
influence  and  power.  Patronage  had  a  welcome  in 
the  public  service  then.  Removals  and  appoint- 
ments were  made  upon  the  judgment  or  caprice  of 
those  at  the  head.  The  Republican  convention  in 
New  York  to  place  a  candidate  for  Governor  before 
the  people  was  to  come  off  early  in  September. 

As  a  result  of  this  consultation  with  Mr.  Lincoln, 
in  the  evening  of  the  day  after  my  arrival  in  Wash- 
ington, Mr.  Nicolay  and  I  left  for  New  York,  and  in 
Room  No.  II,  Astor  House,  next  forenoon,  I  had  a 
talk  with  Mr.  Weed.      I   need  not  speak  of  the  par- 


/O  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ticulars  of  that  conference.  It  is  enough  to  say  that 
Mr.  Nicolay  returned  to  Washington  with  the  resig- 
nation of  Mr.  Rufus  F.  Andrews,  and  that  Mr. 
Abram  Wakeman — zealous  friend  of  Mr.  Weed — 
at  once  became  his  successor  as  Surveyor.  From 
that  time  forward  Mr.  Weed  was  earnest  and  help- 
ful in  the  canvass.  The  small  majority  in  New 
York  in  November — less  than  7,000  for  the  Repub- 
lican electoral  ticket — justified  the  anxiety  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  serves  to  illustrate  his  political  sagac- 
ity and  tact.  He  was  always  politician  as  well  as 
statesman. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  a  successful  impromptu 
speaker.  He  required  a  little  time  for  thought  and 
arrangement  of  the  thing  to  be  said.  I  give  an  in- 
stance in  point.  After  the  election  to  which  I  have 
referred,  just  before  I  resigned  my  seat  in  Congress 
to  enter  upon  my  official  duties  as  Governor  at  Al- 
bany, New  Yorkers  and  others  in  Washington  thought 
to  honor  me  with  a  serenade.  I  was  the  gruest  of 
ex- Mayor  Bowen.  After  the  music  and  speaking 
usual  upon  such  occasions,  it  was  proposed  to  call 
on  the  President.  I  accompanied  the  committee  in 
charge  of  the  proceedings,  followed  by  bands  and  a 
thousand  people.  It  was  full  nine  o'clock  when  we 
reached  the  Mansion.  The  President  was  taken  by 
surprise,  and  said  he  "didn't  know  just  what  he  could 
say  to  satisfy  the  crowd  and  himself."     Going  from 


BY  R.    E.    FEN  TON. 


71 


the  library  room  down  the  stairs  to  the  portico  front, 
he  asked  me  to  say  a  few  words  first,  and  give  him  if 
I  could  "  a  peg  to  hang  on."  It  was  just  when  Gen- 
eral Sherman  was  en  route  from  Atlanta  to  the  sea, 
and  we  had  no  definite  news  as  to  his  safety  or  where- 
abouts. After  one  or  two  sentences,  rather  common- 
place, the  President  farther  said  he  had  no  war  news 
other  than  was  known  to  all,  and  he  supposed  his 
ignorance  in  regard  to  General  Sherman  was  the 
ignorance  of  all  ;  that  "  we  all  knew  where  Sherman 
went  in,  but  none  of  us  knew  where  he  would  come 
out."  This  last  remark  was  in  the  peculiarly  quaint, 
happy  manner  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  created  great  ap- 
plause. He  immediately  withdrew,  saying  he  "had 
raised  a  good  laugh  and  it  was  a  good  time  for  him 
to  quit."  In  all  he  did  not  speak  more  than  two 
minutes,  and,  as  he  afterward  told  me,  because  he 
had  no  time  to  think  of  much  to  say. 

A  few  days  after  I  succeeded  to  the  office  of  Gov- 
ernor I  was  led  to  an  investigation  in  regard  to  the 
quota  of  men  for  New  York  for  the  field,  under  the 
President's  call  for  300,000  of  December  19th  just 
previous.  My  search  led  me  to  doubt  the  correctness 
of  the  assignment  of  quotas  to  several  localities,  and, 
as  between  several  localities  or  districts,  it  was,  to  my 
mind,  unequal  and  unjust.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  was 
so  intended.  It  was  a  difficult  and  perplexing  mat- 
ter ;  differences  in  respect  to  methods  were  liable  to 


72  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

arise  and  errors  were  likely  to  creep  in.  And,  more- 
over, the  total  number,  61,000,  for  the  State  seemed 
to  me  clearly  excessive.  Thus  impressed,  accom- 
panied by  General  George  W.  Palmer  of  my  military 
staff,  I  went  to  Washington  on  the  21st  of  January. 

My  interviews  with  the  Secretary  of  War  and  the 
Provost-marshal  General  did  not  end  favorably  to 
my  views.  The  Secretary  of  War  was  more  than 
firm.  He  was  indeed  rigid  in  adhering  to  the  assign- 
ment for  New  York  as  then  made.  Not  doubting 
the  right  and  justice  of  my  claim  for  reduction  and 
re-assignment  as  to  the  districts,  I  called  on  Mr. 
Lincoln.  He  gave  me  time  and  listened  attentively 
and  patiently  to  all  I  had  to  say.  At  the  close  he 
remarked,  "  I  guess  you  have  the  best  of  it,  and  I 
must  advise  Stanton  and  Fry  to  ease  up  a  little."  He 
wrote  upon  a  card  to  Mr.  Stanton,  and  gave  it  to  me 
to  carry  to  him,  as  follows : 


The  Governor  has  a  pretty  good  case.  I 
feel  sure  he  is  more  than  half  right.  We 
don't  want  him  to  feel  cross  and  we  in  the 
wrong.     Try  and  fix  it  with  him. 

A.   LINCOLN. 


I  write  from  the  card,  which  the  gruff  and  great  Stan- 
ton allowed  me  to  retain. 


BY  R.   E.    FEN  TON.  73 

Neither  he  nor  General  Fry  could  go  over  the 
matter  with  a  view  to  the  further  precise  adjustment 
during  my  sojourn.  The  Legislature  of  my  State 
was  in  session  and  I  could  not  tarry.  I  will  only  add 
that  the  quota  as  finally  arranged  was  fully  9,000  less, 
and  the  equality  between  the  several  districts  was  in 
a  great  measure  restored.  It  was  mainly  satisfactory 
to  the  people.  And  the  State  had  the  proud  honor, 
as  theretofore,  of  unhesitatingly  and  heroically  meet- 
ing this  further  demand  upon  her  patriotism. 

Turning  back  out  of  the  order  of  events  to  the 
fall  and  early  winter  of  1861,  General  McClellan, 
with  an  army  which  some  authorities  place  at  full 
150,000  men,  was  then  in  camp  and  quarters  around 
about  Washington.  It  was  said  to  be  intended  to 
move  "on  to  Richmond,"  or  at  least  toward  the 
Confederate  forces,  some  time  before  the  rains  of 
the  winter  months  should  set  in.  Congress  convened 
the  first  week  in  December.  The  army  seemed  to 
be  in  good  condition  but  impatient.  The  roads 
were  exceptionally  dry  and  good  for  the  season  of 
the  year.  The  loyal  people,  through  the  press  and 
otherwise,  were  calling  for  a  forward  movement,  and 
the  representatives  of  the  people  in  Congress  were 
ready  to  open  upon  General  McClellan  with  wrath- 
ful eloquence  because  of  the  delay.  One,  two,  and 
more  weeks  passed  and  the  army  did  not  move.  It 
was   felt  that  something  must  be  done  to  avert  the 


74 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


threatened  heated  discussion  at  Washington  ;  some- 
thing to  prevent  further  dissatisfaction  and  distrust 
among  the  soldiers  and  the  people.  Galusha  A.  Grow 
was  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives. 

About  the  i8th,  the  Speaker,  the  Hon.  Schuyler 
Colfax,  and  myself  called  on  Mr.  Lincoln  to  plan 
with  him  if  need  be,  or  better  to  say,  to  have  his 
judgment  as  to  a  way  of  escape  from  the  danger 
of  an  aroused  hostile  public  sentiment  which  then 
seemed  imminent. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  keenly  alive  to  the  situation. 
The  character  and  opinions  of  this  rugged-featured 
and  intellectually  great  man  always  enforced  respect 
and  confidence  whatever  the  pleasantry  of  his  man- 
ner. He  said  Providence,  with  favoring  sky  and 
earth,  seemed  to  beckon  the  army  on,  but  General 
McClellan,  he  supposed,  knew  his  business  and  had 
his  reasons  for  disregarding  these  hints  of  Provi- 
dence. "And,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "as  we  have  got 
to  stand  by  the  General,  I  think  a  good  way  to  do 
it  may  be  for  Congress  to  take  a  recess  for  several 
weeks,  and  by  the  time  you  get  together  again,  if 
McClellan  is  not  off  with  the  army.  Providence  is 
very  likely  to  step  in  with  hard  roads  and  force  us  to 
say,  '  the  army  can't  move.'  "  He  continued  :  "  You 
know  Dickens  said  of  a  certain  man  that  if  he  would 
always  follow  his  nose  he  would  never  stick  fast  in 
the  mud.     Well,  when  the  rains  set  in  it  will  be  im- 


BY  R.    E.   FEN  TON.  75 

possible  for  even  our  eager  and  gallant  soldiers  to 
keep  their  noses  so  high  that  their  feet  will  not 
stick  in  the  clay  mud  of  Old  Virginia."  I  have  given 
very  nearly  the  words  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  His  felicity 
in  stating  a  case  and  his  good  sense  always  im- 
pressed me,  and  my  memory  loses  nothing  in  vivid- 
ness with  the  lapse  of  years. 

The  Congress  was  adjourned  for  the  holiday 
period  quite  as  early  and  quite  as  long  as  usual,  not- 
withstanding pressing  public  affairs  were  requiring 
the  attention  of  the  law-making  power.  When  it  re- 
assembled— January  5th,  as  I  remember — the  rain  had 
come,  the  Virginia  roads  were  well-nigh  impassable, 
and  the  army  was  still  in  and  around  Washington. 
Verily,  to  move  then  was  to  stick  fast  in  the  mud, 
and  the  Congress  and  the  country  reluctantly  be- 
came reconciled,  in  a  measure^  to  the  situation. 

R.  E.  FENTON. 


V. 

J.  p.  Usher. 

"Without  doubt  the  greatest  man  of  rebellion  times,  the  one  matchless 
among  forty  millions  for  the  peculiar  difficulties  of  the  period,  was  Abraham 
Lincoln."  James  Longstreet. 

MR.    LINCOLN'S  greatness  was  founded  upon 
his  devotion  to  truth,  his  humanity   and  his 
innate  sense  of  justice  to  all. 

In  his  career  as  a  lawyer,  he  traversed  a  wide 
range  of  territory  in  Illinois  ;  he  attended  many 
courts  and  had  many  professional  engagements, 
some  remunerative  and  others  not.  In  all  his  con- 
flicts at  the  bar,  wherein  it  may  be  said  he  was  suc- 
cessful in  every  case  that  he  ought  to  have  been,  he 
never  inflicted  an  unnecessary  wound  upon  an  ad- 
versary, and  no  one  ever  thought  of  uttering  a  rude 
word  to  him.  He  affected  no  superior  wisdom  over 
his  fellows,  yet  he  was  often  appealed  to  by  the 
judge  to  say  what  rule  of  law  ought  to  be  applied  in 
a  given  case,  and  what  disposition  the  parties  ought 
to  make  of  it,  and  his  opinion,  when  expressed,  al- 
ways seemed  to  be  so  reasonable,  fair  and  just,  that 
the  parties  accepted  it.      He  was  never  known  to  re- 


78  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

buke  any  one  for  intemperance,  profanity,  or  other 
violation  of  social  duty.  While  he  professed  nothing 
in  these  respects,  people  did  not  drink  immoderately 
in  his  presence,  neither  were  they  vulgar  nor  profane. 
When  he  appeared,  every  one  seemed  to  be  happy  ; 
they  wanted  to  hear  him  talk  ;  he  always  had  some- 
thing to  say  that  would  amuse  or  instruct  them — 
something  that  they  had  not  heard  before.  He 
argued  great  causes,  in  which  principle  and  property 
were  involved,  logically,  and  with  wonderful  ability. 
Trifling  causes  he  met  with  ridicule,  and  often  by  an 
anecdote,  in  the  use  of  which  he  was  unsurpassed  : 
the  cause  would  be  abandoned  in  a  gale  of  merri- 
ment, the  losing  party  being  neither  provoked  nor 
angry. 

A  man  endowed  with  such  qualities  was  bound  to 
be  a  successful  politician  ;  and,  if  he  turned  his 
attention  in  that  direction,  none  who  knew  him 
could  doubt  upon  which  side  he  would  be,  or  with 
which  party  he  would  unite.  He  was  a  Whig, 
because  he  believed  the  principles  of  that  party  best 
conduced  to  the  welfare  of  his  fellow-man.  He  be- 
lieved that  the  true  principles  of  government  were 
those  which  Mr.  Clay  advocated.  He  believed  in  the 
protection  of  American  industries.  He  believed 
that  the  slavery  of  men  was  wrong  in  principle,  and 
impossible  of  justification,  and  he  held  in  profound 
veneration  and  respect  the  founders  of  the  State  of 


BY  J.  P.    USHER.  79 

Illinois,  who  had,  by  constitutional  provision,  for- 
ever prevented  the  existence  of  that  institution  in 
the  State. 

His  opinions  upon  this  subject  would  have  re- 
mained a  sentiment  only,  for  he  manifested  no  dis- 
position by  word  or  act  to  interfere  with  slavery 
where  it  existed,  but  for  the  violent  attempt  to  intro- 
duce slavery  in  Kansas  and  Nebraska  upon  the  re- 
peal of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  Mr.  Douglas,  the 
author  of  the  repeal,  sought  to  justify  his  act  by  the 
claim  that  the  Kansas-Nebraska  act  submitted  the 
question  of  slavery  to  the  people  of  those  territories, 
when  they  should  come  to  adopt  a  constitution  and 
apply  for  admission  into  the  Union  as  States.  Upon 
the  questions  involved  the  debates  between  him  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  occurred. 

There  were  comparatively  few  Abolitionists,  in 
the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  in  the  State  of  Illinois. 
Their  doctrines  and  pretensions  were  very  unpop- 
ular. But  a  few  years  had  gone  by  since  Lovejoy 
was  mobbed  and  killed  at  Alton,  his  press  thrown 
into  the  river,  and  his  murder  passed  unavenged  ; 
and  yet  Lovejoy  neither  said  nor  published  anything 
more  hostile  to  slavery  than  Lincoln  uttered  in  those 
debates.  But  Lovejoy  was  an  avowed  Abolitionist ; 
Lincoln  was  not.  Mr.  Douglas  said  at  Freeport,  in 
the  northern  part  of  the  State,  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  not  dare  to  speak  at  Carlisle,  in  the  southern 


8o  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

part  of  the  State,  where  they  were  soon  to  appear, 
in  the  same  terms  he  did  at  Freeport.  When  they 
reached  Carlisle,  Mr.  Lincoln  referred  to  Mr.  Doug- 
las's remark,  and  spoke  in  the  same  strain  as  before, 
and  no  one  remonstrated.  He  could  do  this  because 
the  people  believed  he  was  entirely  sincere.  His  ear- 
nest and  gentle  manners  compelled  them  to  respect 
and  tolerate  the  freedom  of  speech.  At  Charleston 
he  said  :  "  Because  I  do  not  want  and  would  not 
have  a  negfro  woman  for  a  slave  it  does  not  follow 
that  I  want  her  for  a  wife."  This  expression  illus- 
trates his  aptness  in  enforcing  an  argument.  A  com- 
mittee from  the  convention  sitting  in  Richmond, 
which  finally  passed  the  Virginia  ordinance  of  seces- 
sion, went  to  Washington  with  the  request  that  the 
President  should  order  the  evacuation  by  Major  An- 
derson of  Fort  Sumter.  During  the  colloquy  which 
occurred  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  this  committee, 
Mr.  Lincoln  said  : 

"  I  understand  you  claim  and  believe  yourselves 
to  be  Union  men,  that  the  Richmond  Convention  is 
opposed  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  and  that  you 
believe  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  State  want  to 
remain  in  the  Union." 

They  said  :  ''  Yes." 

Then  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  : 

"  I  can't  understand  it  at  all  ;  Virginia  wants  to 
remain  in  the  Union,  and  yet  wants  me  to  let  South 


BY  J.   P.    USHER.  8  I 

Carolina  go  out  and  the  Union  be  dissolved,  in  order 
that  Virginia  may  stay  in." 

The  masterly  debates  between  Douglas  and  Lin- 
coln made  Lincoln  the  nominee  of  the  Republican 
Party  for  President  at  the  Chicago  Convention  in 
i860,  to  the  great  disappointment  of  Mr.  Seward 
and  his  supporters.  The  election  came  on,  and  re- 
sulted in  the  election  of  a  majority  of  Republican 
electors  ;  but  these  electors  did  not  receive  a  major- 
ity of  the  public  vote  by  nearly  a  million  of  votes, 
which  fact  Mr.  Lincoln  often  referred  to  during  his 
administration.  The  Republican  Party,  as  such, 
stood  pledged  to  the  maintenance,  inviolate,  of  the 
rights  of  the  States,  and  especially  the  right  of  each 
State  to  order  and  control  its  own  domestic  institu- 
tions according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusively. 
To  that  pledge  Mr.  Lincoln  determined  rigorously 
to  adhere,  and  if,  during  his  administration,  there 
was  any  seeming  digression  from  that  resolve,  it  was 
brought  about  and  compelled  by  the  exigencies  of 
the  war.  In  his  first  inaugural  address  he  expressed 
himself  as  follows  : 

"  I  have  no  purpose,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  in- 
terfere with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  States 
where  it  exists.  I  believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to 
do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so." 

This,  he  said,  was  quoted  from  one  of  his  former 
speeches,    and,    further,    that    the    same    sentiment 

6 


82  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  IINCOLN 

would  be  found  in  nearly  all  his  public  speeches. 
In  the  course  of  his  address  he  said  : 

"  No  State  upon  its  own  mere  motion  can  lawfully 
get  out  of  the  Union  ;  resolves  and  ordinances  to 
that  effect  are  legally  void,  and  acts  of  violence 
within  any  State  or  States,  against  the  authority  of 
the  United  States,  are  insurrectionary  or  revolution- 
ary, according  to  circumstances." 

Then  followed  a  declaration  that,  in  his  view  of  the 
Constitution  and  the  laws, the  Union  was  unbroken, 
and  that  to  the  extent  of  his  ability  he  would  take 
care  that  the  laws  of  the  Union  be  faithfully  exe- 
cuted in  all  the  States  ;  that  there  need  be  no  blood- 
shed or  violence  in  doing  this,  and  that  there  would 
be  none  unless  it  was  forced  upon  the  national 
authority.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  these  pledges 
were  kept. 

The  frankness  of  this  inaugural  address,  and  the 
pledges  contained  in  it,  inspired  the  devotees  of  the 
Union  in  the  North  with  the  hope  that  peace  would 
finally  prevail.  It  is  plain  that  Mr.  Lincoln  enter- 
tained such  hope,  and  he  had  ample  reason  for  it  if 
he  considered  the  popular  vote.  It  was  but  fair  to 
assume  that  the  votes  cast  for  Messrs.  Douglas  and 
Bell,  with  the  fusion  vote  of  Pennsylvania  for  Breck- 
inridge, were,  with  but  few  exceptions,  the  votes  of 
Union  men.  They,  with  the  votes  cast  for  him, 
amounted   to   nearly   4,000,000  votes,   leaving    only 


BV  J.    P.    USHER.  83 

600,000  or  700,000  who  voted  for  Breckinridge, 
who  were  for  the  most  part  disunionists.  It  was  in- 
credible that  these  Union  voters  would  join  in  a 
rebellion  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  over  the 
express  pledge  in  the  inaugural  address  that  "  the 
government  will  not  assail  you.  You  can  have  no 
conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors." 

Mr.  Bell  was  nominated  as  a  Union  man  ;  his  sup- 
porters were  Unionists  of  the  strictest  order  ;  at  any 
rate  they  professed  to  be,  and  undoubtedly  they 
were.  But  the  mass  of  them  were  in  the  South,  and 
more  or  less  interested  in  the  institution  of  slavery, 
and  were  inconsiderate  enough  to  say  during  the 
canvass  that  if  Mr.  Lincoln  should  be  elected,  and 
should  attempt  to  maintain  the  Union  by  force,  they 
would,  with  the  Breckinridge  men,  resist.  When 
the  war  came,  they  felt  the  force  of  their  pledge. 
They  joined  the  rebellion,  and,  as  was  said  at  the 
time,  they  were  generally  placed  in  the  front,  and 
made  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  battle. 

During  the  canvass  which  terminated  in  the  elec- 
tion of  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr.  Douglas  omitted  no  occa- 
sion to  express  his  devotion  to  the  preservation  of 
the  Union.  He  traversed  the  whole  country,  and  in 
all  his  speeches  left  no  room  to  doubt  his  determina- 
tion to  stand  by  the  government,  no  matter  who  was 
elected.  The  pledges  then  made  he  kept,  and  they 
were  of  immense  value  to  the  Union  cause,  and  for 


84  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

them  Mr.  Lincoln  never  omitted  to  express  his  grati- 
fication and  his  obligation  to  Mr.  Douglas. 

In  a  retrospect  of  the  scenes  of  those  times,  until 
the  firing  upon  Fort  Sumter,  it  must  be  apparent 
to  all  that  good  fortune  attended  Mr.  Lincoln.  The 
Secessionists  dominated  both  Houses,  and  they  had 
it  in  their  power  to  prevent  the  counting  of  the  elec- 
toral vote.  They  could  have  prevented  his  peaceful 
inauguration.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  Mr. 
Jefferson  Davis  would  ever  have  permitted  the  can- 
vassing of  the  electoral  vote,  and  the  subsequent 
inauguration  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  by  which,  in  the  form 
prescribed  by  the  Constitution,  he  was  invested  with 
the  executive  authority  of  the  nation,  if  he  had  sup- 
posed Mr.  Lincoln  would  have  forcibly  resisted  the 
dissolution  of  the  Union.  In  contemplating  the 
awful  crime  of  the  rebellion,  and  the  great  destruc- 
tion of  life  which  Mr.  Davis,  if  he  possessed  the 
abilities  which  his  friends  ascribe  to  him,  ought  to 
have  realized,  how  is  his  conduct  to  be  accounted 
for  in  permitting  the  vote  to  be  canvassed  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  inaugurated  ?  It  is  in  vain  to  say  that  he 
failed  to  inaugurate  anarchy  because  it  was  criminal, 
when  he  was  preparing  to  enter  upon  a  line  of  con- 
duct which  he  ought  to  have  known,  if  persisted  in, 
would  within  a  very  brief  time  lead  to  a  destructive 
war.  It  adds  nothing  to  his  fame  if,  in  charity,  it  be 
said   that    he  expected   a  peaceful   separation  ;  that 


BY  J.  P.    USHER.  85 

the  nation  would  voluntarily  consent  to  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union  and  to  its  own  death, 

Mr.  Seward  was  in  the  Senate  with  Mr.  Davis  in 
the  last  session  of  Congress  of  1860-1 861.  He  was 
satisfied  that  Mr.  Davis  believed  there  would  be  a 
peaceful  dissolution  of  the  Union  ;  that  Davis  ex- 
pected to  be  President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy- 
then  already  taking  shape,  and  that  Mr.  Seward 
would  be  Secretary  of  State  under  Mr.  Lincoln. 
Mr.  Seward  was  apprehensive  that  Mr.  Davis  might 
inauofurate  the  rebellion  before  Mr.  Lincoln  was  to 
be  inaugurated — that  he  would  resist  the  canvass- 
ing of  the  electoral  vote,  and  this  apprehension  led 
to  his  famous  Astor  House  speech.  Mr.  Seward 
afterward,  at  a  dinner  at  Willard's  Hotel,  gave  the 
following  version  of  that  affair.  Referring  to  a 
speech  that  Mr.  Oakey  Hall  had  then  lately  made 
in  the  City  of  New  York,  he  said  : 

"  Oakey  Hall  says  I  am  the  most  august  liar  in  the 
United  States;  that  I  said  in  the  winter  before  the 
war,  in  a  speech  at  the  Astor  House,  that  the  trouble 
would  all  be  over  and  everything  settled  in  sixty 
days.  I  would  have  Mr.  Oakey  Hall  to  know  that 
when  I  made  that  speech  the  electoral  vote  was  not 
counted,  and  I  knew  it  never  would  be  if  Jeff  Davis 
believed  there  would  be  war.  We  both  knew  that 
he  was  to  be  President  of  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
and  that  I  was  to  be  Secretary  of  State  under  Mr. 


86  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Linccln.  I  wanted  the  vote  counted  and  Lincoln 
inaugurated.  I  had  to  deceive  Davis,  and  I  did  it. 
That's  why  I  said  it  would  all  be  settled  in  sixty 
days." 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  effect  of  Mr.  Sew- 
ard's speech  with  respect  to  the  counting  of  the  elec- 
toral vote,  it  is  certain  that  it  was  made  with  the  sole 
object  of  securing  the  orderly  and  due  canvass  of  the 
electoral  vote  and  the  peaceful  inauguration  of  Mr. 
Lincoln.      Mr.  Seward  deemed  that  all-important. 

The  war  was  begun  by  the  firing  upon  Fort  Sum- 
ter. The  pretext  for  making  the  war  was  that  the 
institution  of  slavery  in  the  seceding  States  was  en- 
dangered by  the  Union.  They  ordained  a  form  of 
government  of  which,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Alex- 
ander Stephens,  slavery  was  the  chief  corner-stone. 
It  was  apparent  from  the  beginning  that  if  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery  was  out  of  the  way  the  Union 
would  have  no  foes.  It  was  further  apparent  that 
if  the  so-called  Border  States  would  consent  to  forego 
slavery,  the  States  which  had  already  confederated 
would  be  relatively  so  weak  that  they  would  abandon 
the  rebellion  which  they  had  inaugurated.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln sought  to  have  the  Border  States  accept  com- 
pensation for  the  slaves  held  in  those  States,  but 
failed  to  accomplish  his  object,  and  the  war  went  on. 

To  the  committee  from  the  Richmond  Convention, 
before  referred  to,  he  said  that  if  the  convention  then 


BY  J.    P.    USHER.  87 

in  session  at  Richmond  would  resolve  that  Virginia 
would  adhere  to  the  Union  under  any  and  all  circum- 
stances, and  thereupon  adjourn  sine  die,  he  would 
order  the  evacuation  of  Fort  Sumter.  In  speaking 
of  this  some  two  or  three  years  thereafter,  he  said  : 

"  I  made  the  proposition,  believing  that  if  Vir- 
ginia adhered  to  the  Union  in  good  faith  the  Border 
Slave  States  would  stand  with  Virginia  firmly  for 
the  Union,  and  that  the  Secessionists  would  soon 
discover  that  their  rebellion  could  not  be  successful 
and  war  would  be  avoided." 

Upon  the  closest  scrutiny  of  the  administration  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  it  will  be  found  that  his  paramount  ob- 
ject was  the  preservation  of  the  Union  ;  and  to  en- 
force in  all  the  States  the  laws  of  the  Unites  States 
he  found  it  necessary  to  assault  the  institution  of 
slavery,  it  was  because  he  deemed  it  necessary  to 
carry  out  his  principal  object ;  all  which  was  tersely 
expressed  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Greeley,  that  he  would 
preserve  the  Union  if  it  could  be  done  without  free- 
ing any  slaves. 

"  And  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves  I 
would  do  it — and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  some 
and  leaving  others  alone  I  would  also  do  that." 

Mr.  Greeley  was  evidently  dissatisfied  with  the  ex- 
planation of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  the  Trihine  teemed 
with  complaints  and  criticisms  of  his  administration, 
which  very  much  annoyed  him  ;    so  much  so  that  he 


38  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

requested  Mr.  Greeley  to  come  to  Washington  and 
make  known  in  person  his  complaints,  to  the  end 
that  they  might  be  obviated  if  possible.  The  man- 
aging editor  of  the  Tribune  came.  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  : 

"  You  complain  of  me.  What  have  I  done  or 
omitted  to  do  which  has  provoked  the  hostility  of 
the  Tribune  f  " 

The  reply  was  :  "You  should  issue  a  proclamation 
abolishing  slavery." 

Mr.  Lincoln  answered:  "Suppose  I  do  that. 
There  are  now  20,000  of  our  muskets  on  the  shoul- 
ders of  Kentuckians,  who  are  bravely  fighting  our 
battles.  Every  one  of  them  will  be  thrown  down  or 
carried  over  to  the  rebels." 

The  reply  was  :  "  Let  them  do  it.  The  cause  of 
the  Union  will  be  stronger  if  Kentucky  should  se- 
cede with  the  rest  than  it  is  now." 

Mr.  Lincoln  answered  :    "  Oh,  I  can't  think  that!  " 

No  matter  to  what  political  party  any  man  had 
been  attached,  if  he  was  in  good  faith  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  Union  he  had  the  confidence  of  Mr. 
Lincoln.  During  his  administration  he  recognized 
but  two  parties,  one  for  the  Union  and  the  other 
against  it.  He  repelled  no  one  ;  he  strove  to  make 
friends,  not  for  himself  so  much  as  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  government,  and  seeing  clearly  from  the 
beginning  that  property  in  slaves  was  in  the  way  of 


BY  J.   P.    USHER.  89 

many,  he  urged  them  to  accept  compensation.  His 
wisdom  and  foresight  is  now  apparent  to  all.  If  the 
Border  States  would  have  accepted  compensation 
for  slaves,  or  if  Virginia  had  adhered  to  the  Union, 
there  would  have  been  no  war,  and  slavery  would 
have  been  abolished  by  agreement  and  compensa- 
tion. 

Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  inaugural  said  to  the  malcon- 
tents : 

"  Suppose  you  go  to  war,  you  cannot  fight  always; 
and  when  after  much  loss  on  both  sides,  and  no  gain 
on  either,  you  cease  fighting,  the  identical  old  ques- 
tions as  to  terms  of  intercourse  are  again  upon  you." 

Failing  to  bring  about  the  emancipation  of  the 
slaves  in  the  Border  States  by  agreement  and  com- 
pensation, Mr.  Lincoln  set  about  the  restoration  of 
government  in  the  States  in  rebellion.  On  the  8th 
of  December,  1863,  he  issued  his  Proclamation  of 
Amnesty.  By  that  proclamation  it  was  declared  that 
whenever  in  any  of  the  seceding  States  a  number  of 
persons,  not  less  than  one-tenth  in  number  of  the 
votes  cast  in  such  State  at  the  Presidential  election 
of  i860,  shall  have  taken  the  oath  required,  and  not 
violated  it,  and  being  qualified  voters  by  the  elec- 
tion law  of  the  State  existing  immediately  before  the 
so-called  Act  of  Secession,  and  excludinof  all  others, 
shall  re-establish  a  State  government  which  shall  be 
Republican,  such  shall  be  recognized  as  the  true  gov- 


90 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


ernment  of  the  State,  and  be  protected  by  the  United 
States,  as  a  State,  against  invasion  and  domestic  vio- 
lence. It  will  be  observed  that  the  persons  who 
were  authorized  to  re-establish  a  State  government 
were  to  be  qualified  voters  of  the  State  before  seces- 
sion. Mr.  Chase  insisted  that  this  paragraph  of  the 
proclamation  should  be  changed,  and  the  word  citi- 
zens inserted  in  the  place  of  qualified  voters.  The 
Attorney-General  had  given  an  opinion  to  Mr.  Chase, 
November  29,  1862,  that  colored  men  born  in  the 
United  States  were  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
That  was  the  law  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration, 
so  that  if  he  had  adopted  the  views  of  Mr.  Chase 
the  tenth  in  number  necessary  to  organize  a  State 
might  have  been  legally  composed  of  colored  men. 
There  was  no  argument  upon  this  proposition.  Mr. 
Chase  insisted.  Mr.  Seward  quietly  observed  :  "  I 
think  it  is  very  well  as  it  is."  Mr.  Lincoln  made  no 
reply. 

There  is  abundant  evidence,  however,  proving  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  thought  of  restoring  State  gov- 
ernments in  seceded  States  through  any  other  instru- 
mentality than  by  the  qualified  voters  of  those  States 
before  secession  was  inaugurated. 

It  was  the  purpose  of  the  President  to  issue  a 
proclamation  looking  to  the  emancipation  of  slaves 
during  the  summer  of  1862,  but  in  consequence  of 
the  unexpected  misadventure  of  General   McClellan 


BY  J.  P.    USHER.  Q  J 

in  the  Peninsula  before  Richmond,  it  was  considered 
prudent  to  delay  the  proclamation  until  some  decis- 
ive advantage  should  be  gained  by  the  armies  in  the 
field.  Accordingly,  soon  after  the  battle  of  Antie- 
tam,  the  first  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  was 
made.  By  that,  one  hundred  days  were  given  the 
States  in  rebellion  to  resume  their  normal  condition 
in  the  government.  In  the  preparation  of  the  final 
Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  of  January  i,  1863, 
Mr.  Lincoln  manifested  (jreat  solicitude.  He  had  his 
original  draft  printed,  and  furnished  each  member  of 
his  Cabinet  with  a  copy,  with  the  request  that  each 
should  examine,  criticise,  and  suggest  any  amend- 
ments that  occurred  to  them.  At  the  next  meeting 
of  the  Cabinet,  Mr.  Chase  said : 

"  This  paper  is  of  the  utmost  importance,  greater 
than  any  state  paper  ever  made  by  this  government. 
A  paper  of  so  much  importance,  and  involving  the 
liberties  of  so  many  people,  ought,  I  think,  to  make 
some  reference  to  Deity.  I  do  not  observe  anything 
of  the  kind  in  it." 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  : 

"  No  ;  I  overlooked  it.  Some  reference  to  Deity 
must  be  inserted.  Mr.  Chase,  won't  you  make  a 
draft  of  what  you  think  ought  to  be  inserted  ?  " 

Mr.  Chase  promised  to  do  so,  and  at  the  next 
meeting  presented  the  following  : 

**  And  upon  this  Act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an 


92  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

act  of  justice,  warranted  by  the  Constitution,  upon 
military  necessity,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment 
of  mankind,  and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty 
God." 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  read  the  paragraph,  Mr.  Chase 
said:  "You  may  not  approve  it,  but  I  thought  this 
or  something  like  it  would  be  appropriate." 

Lincoln  replied  :  "I  do  approve  it  ;  it  cannot  be 
bettered,  and  I  will  adopt  it  in  the  very  words  you 
have  written." 

When  the  parts  of  the  proclamation  containing 
the  exception  from  its  operation  of  States  and  parts 
of  States  were  considered,  Mr.  Montgomery  Blair 
spoke  of  the  importance  of  the  proclamation  as  a 
state  paper,  and  said  that  persons  in  after  times,  in 
seeking  correct  information  of  the  occurrences  of 
those  times,  would  read  and  wonder  why  the  thirteen 
parishes  and  the  City  of  New  Orleans  in  Louisiana, 
and  the  counties  in  Virginia  about  Norfolk,  were 
excepted  from  the  proclamation ;  they  were  in 
the  "  very  heart  and  back  of  slavery,"  and  unless 
there  was  some  good  reason  which  was  then  un- 
known to  him,  he  hoped  they  would  not  be  ex- 
cepted. 

Mr.  Seward  said  :  "  I  think  so,  too  ;  I  think  they 
should  not  be  excepted." 

Mr.  Lincoln  replied  :  "  Well,  upon  first  view  your 
objections  are  clearly  good  ;  but  after  I   issued  the 


BY  J.  P.    USHER.  93 

proclamation  of  September  22,  Mr.  Bouligny,  of 
Louisiana,  then  here,  came  to  see  me.  He  was  a 
great  invalid,  and  had  scarcely  the  strength  to  walk 
up  stairs.  He  wanted  to  know  of  me  if  these  par- 
ishes in  Louisiana  and  New  Orleans  should  hold  an 
election,  and  elect  Members  of  Congress,  whether  I 
would  not  except  them  from  this  proclamation.  J 
told  him  I  would." 

Continuing,  he  said  :  "  No,  I  did  not  do  that  in  so 
many  words  ;  if  he  was  here  now  he  could  not  re- 
peat any  words  I  said  which  v/ould  amount  to  an 
absolute  promise.  But  I  know  he  understood  me 
that  way,  and  that  is  just  the  same  to  me.  They 
have  elected  members,  and  they  are  here  now, 
Union  men,  ready  to  take  their  seats,  and  they  have 
elected  a  Union  man  from  the  Norfolk  district." 

Mr.  Blair  said  :  "  If  you  have  a  promise  out,  I  will 
not  ask  you  to  break  it." 

Seward  said  :  "  No,  no.  We  would  not  have  you 
do  that." 

Mr.  Chase  then  said  :  "  Very  true,  they  have 
elected  Hahn  and  Flanders,  but  they  have  not  yet 
got  their  seats,  and  it  is  not  certain  that  they  will." 

Mr.  Lincoln  rose  from  his  seat,  apparently  irri- 
tated, and  walked  rapidly  back  and  forth,  across  the 
room.  Looking  over  his  shoulder  at  Mr.  Chase,  he 
said  :  "  There  it  is,  sir.  I  am  to  be  bullied  by  Con- 
gress, am  I  ?     If  I  do  I'll  be  durned." 


94  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Nothing  more  was  said.  A  month  or  more  there- 
after Hahn  and  Flanders  were  admitted  to  their 
seats. 

The  only  differences  in  the  Cabinet  were  upon 
this  very  question.  Mr.  Lincoln  adhered  strictly  to 
the  opinions  expressed  in  his  inaugural :  that  the  re- 
solves and  ordinances  of  secession  were  void ;  that 
the  insurgent  States  were  never  out  of  the  Union; 
that  all  that  was  necessary  for  them  or  the  people  of 
those  States  to  do  was  to  lay  down  their  arms  and 
cease  fighting,  acknowledge  the  Constitution  and 
laws  of  the  United  States,  and  conform  to  their  re- 
quirements. Mr.  Chase,  with  a  great  many  other 
Union  men,  had  a  different  view  of  that  subject,  the 
discussion  of  which  is  not  now  important,  further 
than  to  state  that  they  held  that  Congress  had  the 
right  and  power  to  enact  such  laws  for  the  govern- 
ment of  the  people  of  those  States  as  they  might 
deem  expedient  for  the  public  safety,  including  the 
bestowal  of  suffrage  upon  negroes.  Mr.  Lincoln 
thought  that  suffrage,  if  it  ever  came  to  the  negroes, 
should  come  in  other  ways.  In  his  Amnesty  Procla- 
mation of  December  8,  1863,  will  be  found  a  fair 
indication  of  his  mind  concerning  the  freed  people. 
He  said  that  any  provision  by  such  State  "  which 
shall  recognize  and  declare  their  permanent  freedom, 
provide  for  their  education,  and  which  may  yet  be 
consistent,  as  a  temporary  arrangement,  with   their 


BY  J.  P.    USHER.  95 

present  condition  as  a  laboring,  landless,  and  home- 
less class,  will  not  be  objected  to  by  the  national 
executive." 

In  all  his  state  papers  and  writings  to  that  date 
there  can  be  found  no  assertion  that  he  intended  to 
force  negro  suffrage  upon  the  people  of  the  slave- 
holding  States.  Doubtless  he  contemplated  that 
some  time  in  the  future  suffrage  would  be  volun- 
tarily yielded  to  the  blacks  by  the  people  of  those 
States.  From  all  that  could  be  gathered  by  those 
who  observed  his  conduct  in  those  times,  it  seemed 
that  his  hope  was  that  the  people  in  the  insurgent 
States,  upon  exercising  authority  under  the  Consti- 
tution and  laws  of  the  United  States,  necessarily 
recognizing  the  extinction  of  slavery,  would  find  it 
necessary  to  make  suitable  provision,  not  only  for 
the  education  of  the  freedmen,  as  specified  in  his 
Amnesty  Proclamation,  but  also  for  the  acquisition 
of  property,  and  its  security  in  their  possession;  and, 
to  insure  that,  would  find  it  necessary  and  expedient 
to  bestow  suffrage  upon  them  in  some  degree  at  least. 
We  have  some  evidence  that  such  was  his  expecta- 
tion and  hope.  In  a  letter  to  Governor  Hahn,  con- 
gratulating him  upon  having  his  name  fixed  in  his- 
tory as  the  first  Free  State  Governor  of  Louisiana, 
he  said  : 

"  Now,  you  are  about  to  have  a  convention, 
which,  among  other  things,  will  probably  define  the 


96     •         REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

elective  franchise.  I  barely  suggest  for  your  private 
consideration  whether  some  of  the  colored  people 
may  not  be  let  in — as,  for  instance,  the  very  intelli- 
gent, and  especially  those  who  have  fought  gallantly 
in  our  ranks.  They  would  probably  help,  in  some 
trying  time  to  come,  to  keep  the  jewel  of  liberty 
within  the  family  of  freedom.  But  this  is  only  a 
suggestion — not  to  the  public,  but  to  you  alone." 

It  was  apparent  to  all  who  bore  intimate  relations 
with  Mr.  Lincoln,  that,  foreseeing  the  termination 
of  the  war  by  the  submission  of  the  insurgents,  his 
mind  was  seriously  affected  in  contemplation  of  the 
new  responsibilities  which  would  devolve  upon  him. 
His  speech  grew  more  grave,  and  his  aspect  more 
serious.  His  second  inaugural  address  was  a  faith- 
ful mirror  of  his  mind.  He  seemed  to  be  oppressed 
with  a  great  care,  conscious  that  changes  were  about 
to  occur  which  would  impose  upon  him  new  duties 
in  which  he  might  possibly  find  himself  in  conflict 
with  many  of  the  public  men  who  had  supported  the 
government  in  the  war.  There  seemed  to  be  as 
many  minds  as  there  were  men,  and  in  a  majority  of 
cases  inclined  to  adhere  to  their  own  opinions,  with- 
out regard  to  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Lincoln  or  any  one 
else  ;  yet  he  felt  that  the  responsibility  all  rested 
upon  him. 

A  short  time  before  the  capitulation  of  General 
Lee,  General  Grant  had  told  him  that  the  war  must 


BY  J.  P.    USHER.  97 

necessarily  soon  come  to  an  end,  and  wanted  to 
know  of  him  whether  he  should  try  to  capture  Jeff 
Davis,  or  let  him  escape  from  the  country  if  he 
would.      He  said  : 

"■  About  that,  I  told  him  the  story  of  an  Irishman 
who  had  taken  the  pledge  of  Father  Mathew.  He 
became  terribly  thirsty,  and  applied  to  a  bartender 
for  a  lemonade,  and  while  it  was  being  prepared  he 
whispered  to  him,  'And  couldn't  ye  put  a  little  brandy 
in  it  all  unbeknown  to  meself  ?  '  I  told  Grant  if  he 
could  let  Jeff  Davis  escape  all  unbeknown  to  him- 
self, to  let  him  go.      I  didn't  want  him." 

When  he  returned  from  the  James,  where  he  met 
Messrs.  Stephens,  Campbell,  and  Hunter,  he  related 
some  of  his  conversations  with  them.  He  said  that 
at  the  conclusion  of  one  of  his  discourses,  detailing 
what  he  considered  to  be  the  position  in  which  the 
insurgents  were  placed  by  the  law,  they  replied  : 

"Well,  according  to  your  view  of  the  case  we  are 
all  guilty  of  treason,  and  liable  to  be  hanged." 

Lincoln  replied  : 

"Yes,  that  is  so." 

They,  continuing,  said  : 

"  Well,  we  suppose  that  would  necessarily  be  your 
view  of  our  case,  but  we  never  had  much  fear  of  being 
hanged  while  you  were  President." 

From  his  manner  in  repeating  this  scene  he  seemed 
to  appreciate  the  compliment  highly.      There  is  no 

7 


98  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

evidence  in  his  record  that  he  ever  contemplated 
executing  any  of  the  insurgents  for  their  treason. 
There  is  no  evidence  that  he  desired  any  of  them  to 
leave  the  country,  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Davis. 
His  great,  and  apparently  his  only  object,  was  to 
have  a  restored  Union.  Soon  after  his  return  from 
the  James,  the  Cabinet  was  convened,  and  he  read 
to  it  for  approval  a  message  which  he  had  prepared 
to  be  submitted  to  Congress,  in  which  he  recom- 
mended that  Congress  appropriate  $300,000,000,  to 
be  apportioned  among  the  several  slave  States,  in 
proportion  to  slave  population,  to  be  distributed  to- 
the  holders  of  slaves  in  those  States  upon  condition 
that  they  would  consent  to  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
the  disbanding  of  the  insurgent  army,  and  would 
acknowledge  and  submit  to  the  laws  of  the  United 
States. 

The  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  all  opposed. 
He  seemed  somewhat  surprised  at  that,  and  asked  : 
*'  How  long  will  the  war  last  ?"  No  one  answered, 
but  he  soon  said  :  "  A  hundred  days.  We  are  spend- 
ing now  in  carrying  on  the  war  $3,000,000  a  day, 
which  will  amount  to  all  this  money,  besides  all  the 
ives. 

With  a  deep  sigh  he  added  :  "  But  you  are  all  op- 
posed to  me,  and  I  will  not  send  the  message." 

From  time  to  tim.e  persons,  probably  desiring  to 
extol  and    magnify   Mr.    Lincoln,  have   represented 


BY  J.  P.    USHER.  99 

that  he  was,  during  the  war,  frequently  discouraged 
and  quite  in  despair.  About  nothing  in  his  career 
has  he  been  more  misrepresented  than  by  these 
persons  in  this  matter.  There  was  never  an  hour 
during  all  the  war  in  which  he  had  any  doubt  of  the 
ultimate  success  of  the  Union  arms.  He  was  often 
disappointed,  and  grieved  at  the  disappointment.  He 
expected  that  McClellan  would  be  successful  on  the 
Peninsula,  and  afterward  that  he  would  follow  up  his 
victory  at  Antietam,  and  that  Meade  would  follow 
up  his  at  Gettysburg;  and  in  speaking  of  that  battle 
and  the  omission  of  Meade  to  pursue  and  fight,  he 
said  : 

"  He  did  so  well  at  Gettysburg  that  I  cannot  com- 
plain of  him." 

As  to  Grant,  after  the  Vicksburg  campaign  he 
never  expressed  a  doubt  of  his  success  nor  seemed  to 
have  the  slightest  apprehension  that  disaster  would 
overtake  him. 

Persons  may  have  fallen  into  the  error  of  suppos- 
ing that  he  was  dejected  and  discouraged  from  his 
appearance  in  repose.  When  not  engaged  in  con- 
versation his  countenance  wore  a  sad  expression, 
but  that  was  no  index  of  the  operation  of  his  mind. 
Chief  among-  his  cfreat  characteristics  were  his  jjen- 
tleness  and  humanity,  and  yet  he  did  not  hesitate 
promptly  to  approve  the  sentences  of  Kennedy  and 
Beall. 


lOO  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Durinor  the  entire  war  there  are  but  few  other  evi- 
dences  to  be  found  of  a  wilHngness  on  his  part  that 
any  one  should  suffer  the  penalty  of  death.  His 
great  effort  seemed  to  be  to  find  some  excuse,  some 
palliation  for  offences  charged.  He  strove  at  all 
times  to  relieve  the  citizens  on  both  sides  of  the  in- 
conveniences and  hardships  resulting  from  the  war. 
It  has  often  been  reported  that  Secretary  of  War 
Stanton  arbitrarily  refused  to  carry  out  his  orders. 
In  all  such  cases  reported  it  will  be  found  that  the 
President  had  given  directions  to  him  to  issue  per- 
mits to  persons  who  had  applied  to  go  through  the 
lines  into  the  insurofent  districts.  The  President  said 
at  one  time,  referring  to  Stanton's  refusal  to  issue 
the  permits  and  the  severe  remarks  made  by  the  per- 
sons who  were  disobliged  : 

"  I  cannot  always  know  whether  a  permit  ought  to 
be  granted,  and  I  want  to  oblige  everybody  when  I 
can,  and  Stanton  and  I  have  an  understanding  that 
if  I  send  an  order  to  him  that  cannot  be  consistently 
granted,  he  is  to  refuse  it,  which  he  sometimes  does; 
and  that  led  to  a  remark  which  I  made  the  other 
day  to  a  man  who  complained  of  Stanton,  that  I 
hadn't  much  influence  with  this  administration,  but 
expected  to  have  more  with  the  next." 

J.  P.  USHER. 


VI. 

George  S.  Boutwell. 

WHEN  Anson  Burlingame  was  in  this  country 
the  last  time  he  gave  me  an  account  of  his 
life  in  China,  his  relations  with  the  principal  person- 
ages there,  and  said,  finally,  "  When  I  die  they  will 
erect  monuments  and  temples  to  my  memory.  How- 
ever much  I  may  now  protest,  they  will  do  that." 
This,  we  are  told,  the  people  and  government  of 
China  have  done. 

Gratitude  to  public  benefactors  is  the  common 
sentiment  of  mankind.  It  has  found  expression  in 
every  age  ;  it  finds  expression  in  every  condition 
of  society.  Monuments  and  temples  seem  to  belong 
to  the  age  of  art  rather  than  to  the  age  of  letters, 
but  reflection  teaches  us  that  letters  cannot  fully 
express  the  obligations  of  the  learned,  even  to  their 
chief  benefactors,  and  only  in  a  less  degree  can  epi- 
taphs, essays  and  histories  satisfy  those  who  have 
not  the  opportunity  and  culture  to  read  and  under- 
stand them.  Moreover,  monuments  and  temples  in 
honor  of  the  dead  express   the  sentiments  of  their 


I02  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

contemporaries  who  survive  ;  and  the  sentiments  of 
contemporaries,  when  freed  from  passion,  crystallize, 
usually,  into  opinion — the  fixed,  continuing  opinion  of 
mankind.  Napoleon  must  ever  remain  great  ;  Wash- 
ington, good  and  great ;  Burke,  the  first  of  English 
orators  ;  the  younger  Pitt,  the  chief  of  English  states- 
men ;  and  Henry  the  Eighth,  a  dark  character  in 
British  history.  Time  and  reflection,  the  competing 
fame  of  new  and  illustrious  men,  the  antiquarian 
and  the  critic,  may  modify  the  first-formed  opinion, 
but  seldom  or  never  is  it  changed.  The  judgment 
rendered  at  the  grave  is  a  just  judgment  usually, 
but  whether  so  or  not  it  is  not  often  disturbed. 

The  fame  of  noble  men  is  at  once  the  most  en- 
dearing and  the  most  valuable  public  possession. 
Of  the  distant  past  it  is  all  of  value  that  remains; 
and  of  the  recent  past,  the  verdant  fields,  the  vil- 
lages, cities  and  institutions  of  culture  and  govern- 
ment are  only  monuments  which  men  of  that  past 
have  reared  to  their  own  fame.  History  is  but  the 
account  of  men  :  the  earth,  even,  is  but  a  mighty 
theater  on  which  human  actors,  great  and  small, 
have  played  their  parts.  Superior  talents  and  favor- 
ing circumstances  have  secured  for  a  few  persons 
that  special  recognition  called  immortality  ;  that  is, 
a  knowledge  of  qualities  and  actions  attributed  to 
an  individual  whose  name  is  preserved  and  trans- 
mitted, with  that  knowledge,  from  one  generation  to 


BY  GEORGE    S.    BOUTWELL.  IO3 

another.  This  immortaHty  may  be  nothing  to  the 
dead,  but  the  record  furnishes  examples  and  in- 
spiring facts,  especially  for  the  young,  by  which  they 
are  encouraged  and  stimulated  to  lead  lives  worthy 
of  the  illustrious  men  of  the  past.  Herein  is  the 
value,  and  the  chief  value,  of  monuments,  temples, 
histories  and  panegyrics.  If  the  highest  use  of 
sinners  is,  by  their  evil  lives  and  bad  examples,  to 
keep  saints  to  their  duty,  so  it  is  also  that  the  im- 
mortality accorded  to  those  who  were  scourges 
rather  than  benefactors  serves  as  a  warning  to  men 
who  strive  to  write  their  names  upon  the  page  of 
history.  But  the  world  really  cherishes  only  the 
memory  of  those  who  were  good  as  well  as  great, 
and  hence  it  is  the  effort  of  panegyrists  and  hero- 
worshipers  to  place  their  idols  in  that  attitude  be- 
fore mankind.  The  immortal  few  are  those  who 
have  identified  themselves  with  contests  and  prin- 
ciples in  which  men  of  all  times  are  interested  ;  or 
who  have  so  expressed  the  wish  or  thought  or  pur- 
pose of  mankind,  that  their  words  both  enlighten 
and  satisfy  the  thoughtful  of  every  age.  When  we 
consider  how  much  is  demanded  of  aspirants  for 
lasting  fame,  we  can  understand  the  statement  that 
that  century  is  rich  which  adds  more  than  one  name 
to  the  short  list  of  persons  who  in  an  historical 
sense  are  immortal.  In  that  sense  those  only  are 
immortal   whose    fame  passes  beyond  the   country, 


104  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

beyond  the  race,  beyond  the  language,  beyond  the 
century,  and  far  outspreads  all  knowledge  of  the  de- 
tails of  local  and  national  history. 

The  empire  of  Japan  sent  accredited  to  the  United 
States  as  its  first  minister  resident,  Ari  Nori  Mori,  a 
young  man  of  extraordinary  ability,  and  then  only 
twenty-four  years  of  age.  A  few  months  before 
Japan  was  opened  to  intercourse  with  other  nations, 
an  elder  brother  of  Mori  lived  for  a  time  as  a  student 
at  Jeddo,  the  capital  of  the  empire.  Upon  his  return 
to  his  home  in  the  country  he  informed  the  family 
that  he  had  heard  of  a  new  and  distant  nation  of 
which  Washington,  the  greatest  and  best  of  men, 
was  the  founder,  savior  and  father.  Beyond  this  he 
had  heard  little  of  the  country  or  the  man,  but  this 
brief  statement  so  inspired  the  younger  brother  to 
know  more  of  the  man  and  of  the  country,  that  he 
resolved  to  leave  his  native  land  without  delay,  and 
in  disobedience  both  to  parental  rule  and  public  law. 
In  this  single  fact  we  see  what  fame  is  in  its  largest 
sense,  and  we  realize  also  the  power  of  a  single 
character  to  influence  others  even  where  there  is  no 
tie  of  country,  of  language,  of  race,  or  any  except 
that  which  gives  unity  to  the  whole  family  of  man. 
If,  then,  the  acquisition  of  fame  in  a  large  sense  be 
so  difficult,  is  it  wise  thus  to  present  the  subject  to 
the  young  ?  May  they  not  be  deterred  from  those 
manly  efforts  which  are  the  prerequisites  to  success^ 


BY  GEORGE   S.    BOUTWELL. 


105 


I  answer,  Fame  is  not  a  proper  object  of  human 
effort,  and  its  pursuit  is  the  most  unwise  of  human 
undertakings.  I  am  not  now  moralizing  ;  I  am  try- 
ing to  state  the  account  as  a  worldly  transaction. 
Moreover,  there  is  a  distinction  between  the  fame  of 
which  I  have  spoken  and  contemporaneous  rec- 
ognition of  one's  capacity  and  fitness  to  perform 
important  private  or  public  service.  This  is  repu- 
tation rather  than  fame,  and  it  well  may  be  sought 
by  honorable  effort,  and  it  should  be  prized  by  every 
one  as  an  object  of  virtuous  ambition.  Success, 
however,  is  not  so  often  gained  by  direct  effort  as  by 
careful,  systematic,  thorough  preparation  for  duty. 
The  world  is  not  so  loaded  with  genius,  nor  even 
with  talent,  that  opportunities  are  wanting  for  all 
those  who  have  capacity  for  public  service. 

Mr.  Bancroft  gave  voice  to  the  considerate  judg- 
ment of  mankind  when,  in  conversation,  he  said, 
"Beyond  question, General  Washington,  intellectually, 
is  the  first  of  Americans."  If  this  statement  be  open 
to  question,  the  question  springs  from  the  limita- 
tion, for  beyond  doubt  Washington  is  the  first  of 
Americans.  His  pre-eminence,  his  greatness,  appear 
in  the  fact  that  his  faculties  end  powers  were  so 
fully  developed,  so  evenly  adjusted  and  nicely  bal- 
anced, that  in  all  the  various  and  difficult  duties  of 
military  and  civil  life  he  never  for  an  instant  failed 
to  meet  the  demand  which  his  position   and  the  at- 


I06  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tenclant  circumstances  made  upon  him^  This  was 
the  opinion  of  his  contemporaries.  His  pre-emi- 
nence was  felt  and  recognized  by  the  leaders  of  the 
savage  tribes  of  America,  by  the  most  sagacious 
statesmen  and  wisest  observers  in  foreign  lands,  and 
by  all  of  his  countrymen  who  were  able  to  escape 
the  influence  of  passion  and  to  consider  passing 
events  in  the  light  of  pure  reason. 

It  is  the  glory  of  Washington  that  he  was  the 
first  great  military  chief  who  did  not  exhibit  the  mili- 
tary spirit ;  and  in  this  he  has  given  to  his  country 
an  example  and  a  rule  of  the  highest  value.  The 
problem  of  republics  is  to  develop  military  capacity 
without  fostering  the  military  spirit.  This  Wash- 
ington did  in  himself,  and  this  also  his  country  has 
done.  The  zeal  of  the  young  men  of  the  Republic 
to  enter  the  military  service  for  the  defense  of  the 
Union,  and  the  satisfaction  with  which  they  accepted 
peace  and  returned  to  the  employments  of  peace,  all 
in  obedience  to  the  example  of  Washington,  are  his 
highest  praise. 

Washington  was  also  an  illustration  of  the  axiom 
in  government,  that  the  faculties  and  qualities  essen- 
tial to  a  military  leader  are  the  highest  endowments 
of  a  ruler  in  time  of  peace;  and  the  instincts  of  men 
are  in  harmony  with  this  historic  and  philosophic 
truth.  The  time  that  has  passed,  since  the  public 
career  and    natural    life   of  Washington  ended,  has 


BV  GEORGE    S.    BOUTWELL.  lO/ 

not  dimmed  the  luster  of  his  fame,  nor  qualified  in 
the  least  that  general  judgment  on  which  he  was 
raised  to  an  equality  with  the  most  renowned  per- 
sonages of  ancient  and  modern  times. 

With  this  estimate,  not  an  unusual  nor  an  exag- 
gerated estimate,  I  venture  to  claim  for  Abraham 
Lincoln  the  place  next  to  Washington,  whether  we 
have  regard  to  private  character,  to  intellectual  qual- 
ities, to  public  services,  or  to  the  weight  of  obligation 
laid  upon  the  country  and  upon  mankind.  Between 
Washington  and  Lincoln  there  were  two  full  gen- 
erations of  men  ;  but,  of  them  all,  I  see  not  one  who 
can  be  compared  with  either. 

Submitting  this  opinion,  in  advance  of  all  evidence, 
I  proceed  to  deal  with  those  qualities,  opportunities, 
characteristics  and  services  on  which  Lincoln's  claim 
rests  for  the  broad  and  most  enduring  fame  of  which 
I  have  spoken.  We  are  attracted  naturally  by  the 
career  of  a  man  who  has  passed  from  the  humblest 
condition  in  early  life  to  stations  of  honor  and  fame 
in  maturer  years.  With  Lincoln  this  space  was  the 
broadest  possible  in  civilized  life.  His  childhood  was 
spent  in  a  cabin  upon  a  mud  floor,  and  his  youth  and 
early  manhood  were  checkered  with  more  than  the 
usual  share  of  vicissitudes  and  disappointments.  The 
chief  blessing  of  his  early  life  was  his  step-mother, 
Sally  Bush,  who,  by  her  affectionate  treatment  and 
wise  conduct,  did  much  to  elevate  the  character  of  the 


108  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

class  of  women  to  which  she  belonged.  His  oppor- 
tunities for  training  in  the  schools  were  few,  and  his 
hours  of  study  were  limited.  The  books  that  he 
could  obtain  were  read  and  re-read,  and  a  grammar 
and  geometry  were  his  constant  companions  for  a 
time;  but  his  means  of  education  bore  no  logical 
relation  to  the  position  he  finally  reached  as  a 
thinker,  writer  and  speaker.  Lincoln  is  a  witness, 
for  the  man  William  Shakespeare,  against  those  hos- 
tile and  illogical  critics  who  deny  to  him  the  author- 
ship of  the  plays  that  bear  his  name  because  they 
cannot  comprehend  the  way  of  reaching  such  results 
without  the  aid  of  books,  teachers  and  universities. 
When  they  show  similar  results  reached  by  the  aid 
of  books,  teachers  and  universities,  or  even  by  their 
aid  chiefly,  they  will  then  have  one  fact  tending 
to  prove  that  such  results  cannot  be  reached  with- 
out such  aids ;  but  in  the  absence  of  the  proof  we 
must  accept  Shakespeare  and  Lincoln,  and  confess 
our  ignorance  of  the  processes  by  which  their  great- 
ness was  attained. 

Books,  schools  and  universities  are  helps  to  all, 
and  they  are  needed  by  each  and  all  in  the  ratio  of 
the  absence  of  natural  capacity.  By  the  processes  of 
reason  employed  to  show  that  Shakespeare  did  not 
write  Hamlet,  it  may  be  proved  that  Lincoln  did  not 
compose  the  speech  which  he  pronounced  at  Gettys- 
burg,    The  parallel  between  Shakespeare  and  Lin- 


BY  GEORGE   S.    BOUT  WELL.  lOQ 

coin  is  good  to  this  extent.  Tlie  products  of  the  pen 
of  Lincoln  imply  a  degree  of  culture  in  schools  which 
he  never  had,  and  a  process  of  reasoning  upon  that 
implication  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  not 
the  author  of  what  bears  his  name.  We  know  that 
this  conclusion  would  be  false,  and  we  may  therefore 
question  the  soundness  of  a  similar  process  of  rea- 
soning in  the  case  of  Shakespeare. 

The  world  gives  too  much  credit  to  self-made  men. 
Not  much  is  due  to  those  who  are  so  largely  endowed 
by  nature  that  they  at  once  outrun  their  contempo- 
raries who  are  always  on  the  crutches  of  books  and 
authorities,  and  but  a  little  more  is  due  to  the  lar- 
ger class  who  in  isolation  and  privation  acquire  the 
knowledge  that  is  gained,  usually,  only  in  the  schools. 
In  the  end,  however,  we  judge  the  man  as  a  whole 
and  as  a  result,  for  there  is  no  trustworthy  analysis  by 
which  we  can  decide  how  much  is  due  to  nature,  how 
much  to  personal  effort,  and  how  much  to  circum- 
stances. Of  all  the  self-made  men  of  America,  Lin- 
coln owed  least  to  books,  schools,  and  society.  Wash- 
ington owed  much  to  these,  and  all  his  self-assertion, 
which  was  considerable,  in  society,  in  the  army,  and 
in  civil  affairs,  was  the  assertion  of  a  trained  man. 
Lincoln  asserted  nothing  but  his  capacity,  when  it 
was  his  duty  to  decide  what  was  wise  and  what  was 
right.  He  claimed  nothing  for  himself,  in  his  per- 
sonal   character,  in    the    nature    of   deference    from 


I  lO  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Others,  and  too  little,  perhaps,  for  the  great  office 
he  held.  The  schools  create  nothing ;  they  only 
brinsf  out  what  is  ;  but  as  lono-  as  the  mass  of  man- 
kind  think  otherwise,  an  untrained  person  like  Lin- 
coln has  an  immense  advantage  over  the  scholar  in 
the  contest  for  immortality.  In  this  particular,  how- 
ever, the  instincts  of  men  have  a  large  share  of  wis- 
dom in  them.  When  we  speak  of  human  greatness 
we  mean  natural,  innate  faculty  and  power.  We 
distinguish  the  gift  of  God  from  the  culture  of  the 
schools.  The  unlearned  give  the  schools  too  much 
credit  in  the  work  of  developing  power  and  forming 
character  ;  the  learned,  perhaps,  give  them  too  little. 
But  whether  judged  by  the  learned  or  the  unlearned, 
Lincoln  is  the  most  commanding  figure  in  the  ranks 
of  self-made  men  which  America  has  yet  produced. 

Mr.  Lincoln  possessed  the  almost  divine  faculty  of 
interpreting  the  will  of  the  people  without  any  ex- 
pression by  them.  We  often  hear  of  the  influence 
of  the  atmosphere  of  Washington  upon  the  public 
men  residing  there.  It  never  affected  him.  He 
was  of  all  men  most  independent  of  locality  and 
social  influences.  He  was  wholly  self-contained  in 
all  that  concerned  his  opinions  upon  public  ques- 
tions and  in  all  his  judgments  of  the  popular  will. 
Conditions  being  given,  he  could  anticipate  the 
popular  will  and  conduct.  W^hen  the  proceedings 
of  the  convention  of  dissenting  Republicans,  which 


BY   GEORGE   S.    BOUTIVELL.  Ill 

assembled  at  Cleveland  in  1864,  were  mentioned  to 
him  and  his  opinion  sought,  he  told  the  story  of  two 
fresh  Irishmen  who  attempted  to  find  a  tree-toad 
that  they  heard  in  the  forest,  and  how,  after  a  fruit- 
less hunt,  one  of  them  consoled  himself  and  his  com- 
panion with  the  expression,  "  An'  faith  it  was  noth- 
ing but  a  noise." 

Mr.  Lincoln's  goodness  of  nature  was  boundless. 
In  childhood  it  showed  itself  in  unfeigned  aversion 
to  every  form  of  cruelty  to  animal  life.  When  he 
was  President  it  found  expression  in  that  memorable 
letter  to  Mrs.  Bixby  of  Boston,  who  had  given,  irre- 
vocably given,  as  was  then  supposed,  five  sons  to  the 
country.  The  letter  was  dated  November  21,  1864, 
before  the  excitement  of  his  second  election  was 
over: 

"  Dear  Madam  : — I  have  been  shown, in  the  files  of 
the  War  Department,  a  statement,  of  the  Adjutant- 
General  of  Massachusetts,  that  you  are  the  mother 
of  five  sons  who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field  of 
battle.  I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any 
words  of  mine  which  should  attempt  to  beguile  you 
from  a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But  I  cannot  refrain 
from  tendering  to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be 
found  in  the  thanks  of  the  Republic  they  died  to  save. 
1  pray  that  our  Heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the 
anguish  of  your  bereavement,  and  leave  you  only  the 
cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the  sol- 


I  I  2  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

emn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly 
a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 

"  Yours,  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 

"ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 
"  To  Mrs.  Bixby,  Boston,  Massachusetts." 

I  imagine  that  all  history  and  all  literature  may 
be  searched,  and  in  vain,  for  a  funeral  tribute  so 
touching,  so  comprehensive,  so  fortunate  in  expres- 
sion as  this. 

If  we  have  been  moved  to  laughter  by  a  simple 
story  and  to  tears  by  a  pathetic  strain,  we  can  under- 
stand what  Lincoln  was  to  all,  and  especially  to  the 
common  people  who  were  his  fellows  in  everything 
except  his  greatness,  when  he  moved,  spoke,  and 
acted  among  them.  It  would  be  a  reflection  upon 
the  human  race  if  men  did  not  recognize  something 
worthy  of  enduring  fame  in  one  whose  kindness  and 
sympathy  were  so  comprehensive  as  to  include  the 
insect  on  the  one  side  and  the  noble,  but  bereaved, 
mother  on  the  other.  To  the  soldier,  General 
Thomas  was  "  Old  Holdfast,"  General  Hooker  was 
"  Fighting  Joe,"  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  "Father  Abra- 
ham." These  names  were  due  to  personal  qualities 
which  the  soldiers  observed,  admired  and  applauded. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  mirth-making,  genial,  melancholy 
man.  By  these  characteristics  he  enlisted  sympathy 
for  himself  at  once,  while  his  moral  qualities  and 
intellectual  pre-eminence  commanded  respect.     Mr. 


BY  GEORGE   S.    BOUTWELL.  II3 

Lincoln's  wit  and  mirth  will  give  him  a  passport  to 
the  thouorhts  and  hearts  of  millions  who  would  take 
no  interest  in  the  sterner  and  more  practical  parts  of 
his  character.  He  used  his  faculties  for  mirth  and 
wit  to  relieve  the  melancholy  of  his  life,  to  parry 
unwelcome  inquiries,  and,  in  the  debates  of  politics 
and  the  bar,  to  worry  his  opponents.  In  debate  he 
often  so  combined  wit,  satire  and  statement  that  his 
opponent  at  once  appeared  ridiculous  and  illogical. 
Mr.  Douglas  was  often  the  victim  of  these  sallies  in 
the  great  debate  for  the  Senate  before  the  people  of 
Illinois,  and  before  the  people  of  the  country,  in  the 
year  1858.  Douglas  constantly  asserted  that  abolition 
would  be  followed  by  amalgamation,  and  that  the 
Republican  party  designed  to  repeal  the  laws  of 
Illinois  which  prohibited  the  marriage  of  blacks  and 
whites.  This  was  a  formidable  appeal,  to  the  prej- 
udices of  the  people  of  Southern  Illinois  especially. 
"  I  protest  now  and  forever,"  said  Lincoln,  "  against 
that  counterfeit  logic  which  presumes  that  because  I 
did  not  want  a  negro  woman  for  a  slave,  I  do,  neces- 
sarily, want  her  for  a  wife.  I  have  never  had  the  least 
apprehension  that  I  or  my  friends  would  marry 
negroes  if  there  were  no  law  to  keep  them  from  it, 
but  as  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends  seem  to  be  in 
great  apprehension  that  they  might,  if  there  were 
no  law  to  keep  them  from  it,  I  give  him  the  most  sol- 
emn pledge  that  I  will  to  the  very  last  stand  by  the 


114  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

law  of  this  State,  which  forbids  the  marrying  of  white 
people  with  negroes." 

Thus  in  two  sentences  did  Mr.  Lincoln  overthrow 
Douglas  in  his  logic  and  render  him  ridiculous  in  his 
position.  Douglas  claimed  special  credit  for  the  de- 
feat of  the  Lecompton  bill,  although  five-sixths  of 
the  votes  were  given  by  the  Republican  Party.  Said 
Lincoln  :  "  Why  is  he  entitled  to  more  credit  than 
others  for  the  performance  of  that  good  act,  unless 
there  was  something  in  the  antecedents  of  the  Re- 
publicans that  might  induce  every  one  to  expect  them 
to  join  in  that  good  work,  and, at  the  same  time.lead- 
ing  them  to  doubt  that  he  would.  Does  he  place 
his  superior  claim  to  credit  on  the  ground  that  he 
performed  a  good  act  which  was  never  expected  of 
him?"  He  then  gave  Mr.  Douglas  the  benefit  of  a 
specific  application  of  the  parable  of  the  lost  sheep. 

In  the  last  debate  at  Alton,  October  15,  1858, 
Mr.  Douglas  proceeded  to  show  that  Buchanan  was 
guilty  of  gross  inconsistencies  of  position.  Lincoln 
did  not  defend  Buchanan,  but  after  he  had  stated 
the  fact  that  Douglas  had  been  on  both  sides  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  he  added :  "  I  want  to  know 
if  Buchanan  has  not  as  much  right  to  be  inconsistent 
as  Douglas  has  ?  Has  Douglas  the  exclusive  right 
in  this  country  of  being  on  all  sides  of  all  questions  ? 
Is  nobody  allowed  that  high  privilege  but  himself? 
Is  he  to  have  an  entire  monopoly  on  that  subject?" 


BY  GEORGE   S.    BOUTWELL.  II5 

There  are  three  methods  in  debate  of  sustaininof 
and  enforcing  opinions,  and  the  faculty  and  facihty 
of  usine  these  several  methods  are  the  tests  of  in- 
tellectual  quality  in  writers  and  speakers.  First, 
and  lowest  intellectually,  are  those  who  rely  upon 
authority.  They  gather  and  marshal  the  sayings 
of  their  predecessors,  and  ask  their  hearers  and 
readers  to  indorse  the  positions  taken,  not  because 
they  are  reasonable  and  right  under  the  process  of 
demonstration,  but  because  many  persons  in  other 
times  have  thought  them  to  be  right  and  reasonable. 
As  this  is  the  work  of  the  mere  student,  and  does 
not  imply  either  philosophy  or  the  faculty  of  reason- 
ing, those  who  rely  exclusively  upon  authority  are  in 
the  third  class  of  intellectual  men.  Next,  and  of  a 
much  higher  order,  are  the  writers  and  speakers 
who  state  the  facts  of  a  case,  apply  settled  prin- 
ciples to  them,  and  by  sound  processes  of  reasoning 
maintain  the  position  taken.  But  high  above  all 
are  the  men  who  by  statement  pure  and  simple,  or 
by  statement  argumentative,  carry  conviction  to 
thoughtful  minds.  Unquestionably  Mr.  Lincoln  be- 
longs to  this  class.  Those  who  remember  Douglas's 
theory  in  regard  to  "squatter  sovereignty,"  which 
he  sometimes  dignified  by  calling  it  the  "  sacred 
right  of  self-government,"  will  appreciate  the  force 
of  Lincoln's  statement  of  the  scheme  in  these 
v.'ords :    "The  phrase,    'sacred  right   of  self-govern- 


I  I  6  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ment,'  though  expressive  of  the  only  rightful  basis 
of  any  government,  was  so  perverted  in  the  at- 
tempted use  of  it  as  to  amount  to  just  this  :  That 
if  any  one  ma?t  choose  to  enslave  another,  no  third 
man  shall  be  allowed  to  objects 

In  the  field  of  argumentative  statement,  Mr. 
Webster,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  had  had  no  rival 
in  America;  but  he  has  left  nothing  more  exact, 
explicit,  and  convincing  than  this  extract  from 
Lincoln's  first  speech  of  the  great  debate.  Here  is 
a  statement  in  less  than  twenty  words.  If  any  one 
7nan  choose  to  enslave  anothe7%  no  third  man  shall  be 
allowed  to  object,  which  embodies  the  substance  of 
the  opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  in  the  case  of  Dred  Scott,  the  theory  of  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  and  exposes  the  sophistry 
which  Douglas  had  woven  into  his  arguments  on 
"squatter  sovereignty." 

Douglas  constantly  appealed  to  the  prejudices  of 
the  people,  and  arrayed  them  against  the  doctrine 
of  negro  equality.  Lincoln,  in  reply,  after  asserting 
their  equality  under  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, added:  "In  the  right  to  eat  the  bread,  with- 
out the  leave  of  anybody  else,  which  his  own  hand 
earns,  he  is  my  equal,  and  the  equal  of  Judge 
Douglas,  and  the  equal  of  every  living  man." 
Douglas  often  said — and  he  commanded  the  cheers 
of  his  supporters  when  he  said  it — "  I  do  not  care 


BV  GEORGE   S.    BOUT  WELL. 


117 


whether  slavery  is  voted  up  or  voted  down."     In  his 
final  speech  at  Alton,  Lincoln  reviewed  the  history 
of  the  churches  and  of  the  government  in  connection 
with  slavery,  and  he  then  asked  :  "  Is  it  not  a  false 
statesmanship  that  undertakes  to  build  up  a  system 
of  policy  upon  the  basis  of  caring  nothing  about  the 
very    thing    that    everybody    does    care    the     most 
about?"     He    then,    in    the    same    speech,    assailed 
Douglas's  position  in  an  argument,  which  is  but  a 
series  of  statements,  and,  as  a  whole,  it  is,  in  its  logic 
and  moral  sentiment,  the  equal  of  anything  in    the 
language:    "  He  may  say  he  doesn't  care  whether  an 
indifferent  thing  is  voted  up  or  down,  but  he  must 
logically  have  a  choice  between  a  right  thing  and  a 
wrong  thing.      He  contends  that  whatever  commu- 
nity wants  slaves  has  a  right  to  have  them.      So  they 
have,  if  it  is  not  a  wrong.      But  if  it  is  a  wrong,  he 
cannot  say  people  have  a  right  to  do  wrong.      He 
says  that,  upon  the  score  of  equality,  slaves    should 
be  allowed   to   go   into   a    new   territory   like   other 
property.     This  is  strictly  logical,  if  there  is  no  dif- 
ference between  it  and  other  property.       If  it  and 
other  property  are   equal,   his  argument    is   entirely 
logical.      But  if  you  insist  that  one  is  wrong  and  the 
other   right,   there    is    no   use    to    institute    a    com- 
parison between  right  and  wrong.       You  may  turn 
over  everything  in  the  Democratic  policy  from  be- 
ginning to  end — whether  in  the    shape  it    takes   on 


1  I  8  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  statute-book,  in  the  shape  it  takes  in  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  in  the  shape  it  takes  in  conversation, 
or  in  the  shape  it  takes  in  short  maxim-like  argu- 
ments— it  everywhere  carefully  excludes  the  idea 
that  there  is  anything  wrong  in  it.  That  is  the  real 
issue.  That  is  the  issue  that  will  continue  in  this 
country  when  these  poor  tongues  of  Judge  Douglas 
and  myself  shall  be  silent.  It  is  the  eternal  strug- 
gle between  these  two  principles,  right  and  wrong, 
throughout  the  world.  They  are  the  two  principles 
that  have  stood  face  to  face  from  the  beginning  of 
time,  and  will  ever  continue  to  struggle.  The  one 
is  the  common  right  of  humanity;  and  the  other,  the 
divine  right  of  kings.  It  is  the  same  principle  in 
whatever  shape  it  develops  itself.  It  is  the  same 
spirit  that  says,  '  You  work  and  toil  and  earn  bread, 
and  I'll  eat  it.'  No  matter  in  what  shape  it  comes, 
whether  from  the  mouth  of  a  king  who  seeks  to 
bestride  the  people  of  his  own  nation  and  live  by 
the  fruit  of  their  labor,  or  from  one  race  of  men  as 
an  apology  for  enslaving  another  race,  it  is  the  same 
tyrannical  principle." 

To  the  Democrat  who  admitted  that  slavery  was 
a  wrong,  Mr.  Lincoln  addressed  himself  thus  :  "You 
never  treat  it  as  a  wrong.  You  must  not  say  any- 
thing about  it  in  the  free  States,  because  it  is  not 
here.  You  must  not  say  anything  about  in  the  slave 
States,  because  it  is  there.     You  must  not  say  any- 


BY  GEORGE    S.    BOUTIVELL. 


119 


thing  about  it  in  the  pulpit,  because  that  is  religion, 
and  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  You  must  not  say 
anything  about  it  in  politics,  because  that  will  dis- 
turb the  security  of  my  place.  There  is  no  place 
to  talk  about  it  as  being  wrong,  although  you  say 
yourself  it  is  a  wrong." 

Among  the  rude  people  with  whom  Lincoln 
passed  his  youth  and  early  manhood,  his  personal 
courage  was  often  tested,  and  usually  in  support  of 
the  rights  or  pretensions  of  others,  or  in  behalf  of 
the  weak,  the  wronged,  or  the  dependent.  In  later 
years  his  moral  characteristics  were  subjected  to 
tests  equally  severe.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  an 
agitator  like  Garrison,  Phillips,  and  O'Connell,  and 
as  a  Reformer  he  belonged  to  the  class  of  moderate 
men,  such  as  Peel  and  Gladstone  ;  but  in  no  condi- 
tion did  he  ever  confound  right  with  wrong,  or  speak 
of  injustice  with  bated  breath.  His  first  printed 
paper  was  a  plea  for  temperance  ;  and  his  second,  a 
eulogy  upon  the  Union.  His  positive,  personal  hos- 
tility to  slavery  goes  back  to  the  year  1831,  when  he 
arrived  at  New  Orleans  as  a  laborer  upon  a  flat- 
boat.  "  There  it  was,"  says  Hanks,  his  companion  ; 
"  we  saw  negroes  chained,  maltreated,  whipped  and 
scourged.  Lincoln  saw  it,  said  nothing  much,  was 
silent  from  feeling,  was  sad,  looked  bad,  felt  bad,  was 
thoughtful  and  abstracted.  I  can  say,  knowing  it, 
that  it  was  on  this  trip  that  he  formed  his  opinion  of 


1  20  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

slavery.  It  run  its  iron  in  him  then  and  there,  May, 
1 83 1.  I  have  heard  him  say  so  often  and  often." 
In  1850,  he  said  to  his  partner,  Mr.  Stuart:  "The 
time  will  come  when  we  must  all  be  Democrats  or 
Abolitionists.  When  that  time  comes  my  mind  is 
made  up.  The  slavery  question  can't  be  compro- 
mised." In  1855,  he  said  :  "  Our  progress  in  degen- 
eracy appears  to  me  to  be  pretty  rapid.  As  a  nation 
we  began  by  declaring  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 
We  now  practically  read  it  all  men  are  created  equal 
except  negroes'''  In  his  Ottawa  speech  of  1858,  he 
read  an  extract  from  his  speech  at  Peoria,  made  in 
1854,  in  these  words:  "This  declared  indifference, 
but  as  I  must  think  real  zeal  for  the  spread  of  slav- 
ery, I  cannot  but  hate.  I  hate  it  because  of  the 
monstrous  injustice  of  slavery  itself.  I  hate  it  be- 
cause it  deprives  our  Republican  example  of  its  just 
influence  in  the  world,  enables  the  enemies  of  free  in- 
stitutions with  plausibility  to  taunt  us  as  hypocrites, 
causes  the  real  friends  of  freedom  to  doubt  our  sin- 
cerity, and,  especially,  because  it  forces  so  many  really 
good  men  among  ourselves  into  an  open  war  with  the 
very  fundamental  principles  of  civil  liberty,  criticising 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  insisting  that 
there  is  no  right  principle  of  action  but  self-interest." 
These  extracts  prepare  the  reader  for  the  most 
important  utterance  by  Mr.  Lincoln  previous  to  his 
elevation  to  the  Presidency. 


BY  GEORGE    S.    BOUT  WELL.  121 

The  Republican  Convention  of  the  State  of  Illi- 
nois met  at  Springfield,  June  17,  1858,  and  nomi- 
nated Mr.  Lincoln  for  the  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  then  held  by  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 
This  action  was  expected,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  had  pre- 
pared himself  to  accept  the  nomination  in  a  speech 
which  he  foresaw  would  be  the  pivot  of  debate  with 
Judge  Douglas.  That  speech  he  submitted  to  a 
council  of  at  least  twelve  of  his  personal  and  politi- 
cal friends,  all  of  whom  advised  him  to  omit  or  to 
change  materially  the  first  paragraph.  This  Mr. 
Lincoln  refused  to  do,  even  when  challenged  by  the 
opinion  that  it  would  cost  him  his  seat  in  the  Senate. 
It  did  cost  him  his  seat  in  the  Senate,  but  the  speech 
would  have  been  delivered  had  he  foreseen  that  it 
would  cost  him  much  more.  After  its  delivery,  and 
while  the  canvass  was  sroinor  on,  he  said  to  his 
friends :  "You  may  think  that  speech  was  a  mistake, 
but  I  never  have  believed  it  was,  and  you  will  see 
the  day  when  you  will  consider  it  was  the  wisest 
thing  I  ever  said.  If  I  had  to  draw  a  pen  across 
and  erase  my  whole  life  from  existence,  and  I  had 
one  poor  gift  or  choice  left  as  to  what  I  should  save 
from  the  wreck,  I  should  choose  that  speech,  and 
leave  it  to  the  world  unerased."  These  are  the 
words  that  he  prized  so  highly,  and  which,  for  the 
time,  cost  him  so  much  :  "  If  we  could  first  know 
where  we  are   and  whither  we  are  tending,  we  could 


122  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

better  judge  what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are 
now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  poHcy  was  initi- 
ated with  the  avowed  object  and  confident  promise 
of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agitation.  Under  the 
operation  of  that  pohcy,  that  agitation  has  not  only 
not  ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented.  In  my 
opinion  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been 
reached  and  passed.  '  A  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand.'  I  believe  this  government  cannot 
endure  permanently,  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do 
not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved  ;  I  do  not  ex- 
pect the  house  to  fall  ;  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease 
to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all 
the  other ;  either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest 
the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  pub- 
lic mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course 
of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it 
forward,  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the 
States,  old  as  well  as  new.  North  as  well  as  South." 
To  the  pro-slavery,  sensitive,  prejudiced,  Union-sav- 
ing classes  it  was  not  difficult  to  interpret  this  para- 
graph in  a  highly  offensive  sense.  The  phrase,  "A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand "  was  in- 
terpreted as  a  declaration  against  the  Union.  It 
was,  in  fact,  a  declaration  of  the  existence  of  the 
irrepressible  conflict. 

Douglas  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  to  ex- 
cite the  prejudices  of  the  people,  and  thus  secured 


BY  GEORGE    S.   BOUTWELL. 


123 


his  re-election  to  the  Senate.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a 
higher  object :  he  sought  to  change  public  sentiment. 
No  man  ever  lived  who  better  understood  the  means 
of  affecting  public  sentiment,  or  more  highly  appreci- 
ated its  power  and  importance.  At  Ottawa  he  said : 
"  In  this  and  like  communities  public  sentiment  is 
everything.  With  public  sentiment  nothing  can  fail ; 
without  it  nothing  can  succeed.  Consequently,  he 
who  molds  public  sentiment  goes  deeper  than  he 
who  enacts  statutes  or  pronounces  decisions.  He 
makes  statutes  and  decisions  possible  or  impossible 
to  be  executed." 

I  have  quoted  thus  freely  from  Mr.  Lincoln  that 
we  may  appreciate  his  moral  courage  ;  that  we  may 
rest  in  the  opinion  that  he  was  an  early,  constant, 
consistent  advocate  of  human  liberty ;  and  that  we 
might  enjoy  the  charm  of  his  transcendently  clear 
thought,  convincing  logic,  and  power  of  statement. 
When  he  became  President,  and  was  called  to  bear 
the  chief  burden  in  the  struggle  for  liberty  and  the 
Union,  he  was  never  dismayed  by  the  condition  of 
public  affairs,  nor  disturbed  by  apprehensions  for  his 
personal  safety.  He  was  like  a  soldier  in  the  field, 
enlisted  for  duty,  and  danger  was,  of  course,  incident 
to  it.  I  was  alone  with  Mr.  Lincoln  more  than  two 
hours  of  the  Sunday  next  after  Pope's  defeat  in 
August,  1862.  That  was  the  darkest  day  of  the  sad 
years  of  the  war.      McClellan  had  failed  upon  the 


I  24  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Peninsula.  Pope's  army,  reinforced  by  the  remains 
of  the  Army  of  the  Peninsula,  had  been  driven  within 
the  fortification  of  Washington.  Our  losses  of  men 
had  been  enormous,  but  most  serious  of  all  was  the 
loss  of  confidence  in  commanders.  The  army  did 
not  confide  in  Pope,  and  the  authorities  did  not  con- 
fide in  McClellan.  In  that  crisis  Lincoln  surren- 
dered his  own  judgment  to  the  opinion  of  the  army, 
and  re-established  McClellan  in  command.  When 
the  business  to  which  I  had  been  summoned  by  the 
President  was  over — strange  business  for  the  time: 
the  appointment  of  assessors  and  collectors  of  inter- 
nal revenue — he  was  kind  enough  to  ask  my  opinion 
as  to  the  command  of  the  army.  The  way  was  thus 
opened  for  conversation,  and  for  me  to  say  at  the 
end  that  I  thought  our  success  depended  upon  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves.  To  this  he  said  :  "  You 
would  not  have  it  done  now,  would  you  ?  Must  we 
not  wait  for  something  like  a  victory?"  This  was 
the  second  and  most  explicit  intimation  to  me  of  his 
purpose  in  regard  to  slavery.  In  the  preceding  July 
or  early  in  August,  at  an  interview  upon  business 
connected  with  my  official  duties,  he  said,  "  Let  me 
read  two  letters,"  and  taking  them  from  a  pigeon- 
hole over  his  table  he  proceeded  at  once  to  do  what 
he  had  proposed.  I  have  not  seen  the  letters  in 
print.  His  correspondent  was  a  gentleman  in  Louis- 
iana, who  claimed  to  be  a  Union  man.     He  tendered 


£V  GEORGE   S.    BOUTWELL.  I  25 

his  advice  to  the  President  in  resfard  to  the  reor- 
ganization  of  that  State,  and  he  labored  zealously  to 
impress  upon  him  the  dangers  and  evils  of  emanci- 
pation. The  reply  of  the  President  is  only  impor- 
tant from  the  fact  that  when  he  came  to  that  part  of 
his  correspondent's  letter  he  used  this  expression  : 
"  You  must  not  expect  me  to  give  up  this  govern- 
ment without  playing  my  last  card."  Emancipation 
was  his  last  card.  He  waited  for  the  time  when  two 
facts  or  events  should  coincide.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  as 
devoted  to  the  Constitution  as  was  ever  Mr.  Web- 
ster. In  his  view,  a  military  necessity  was  the  only 
ground  on  which  the  overthrow  of  slavery  in  the 
States  could  be  justified.  Next  he  waited  for  a  pub- 
lic sentiment  in  the  loyal  States  not  only  demanding 
emancipation  but  giving  full  assurance  that  the  act 
would  be  sustained  to  the  end.  As  for  himself,  I 
cannot  doubt  that  he  had  contemplated  the  policy 
of  emancipation  for  many  months,  and  anticipated 
the  time  when  he  should  adopt  it.  At  his  interview 
with  the  Chicago  clergy  he  stated  the  reasons 
against  emancipation,  and  stated  them  so  forcibly 
that  the  clergy  were  not  prepared  to  answer  them  ; 
but  the  accredited  account  of  the  interview  contains 
conclusive  proof  that  Mr.  Lincoln  then  contemplated 
issuing  the  proclamation.  It  may  be  remembered  by 
the  reader  that  in  the  political  campaign  of  1862, 
a  prominent  leader  of  the   People's   Party,   the  late 


126  REMIXISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Judge  Joel  Parker,  of  Cambridge,  Massachusetts, 
said  in  public  that  Mr.  Lincoln  issued  the  proclama- 
tion under  the  influence  of  the  loyal  governors  who 
met  at  Altoona  in  September  of  that  year.  As  I 
was  about  to  leave  Washington  in  the  month  of 
October  to  take  part  in  the  canvass,  I  mentioned  to 
the  President  the  fact  that  such  a  statement  had 
been  made.  He  at  once  said  :  "  I  never  thought  of 
the  meeting  of  the  governors.  The  truth  is  just 
this  :  When  Lee  came  over  the  river,  I  made  a  res- 
olution that  if  McClellan  drove  him  back  I  would 
send  the  proclamation  after  him.  The  battle  of  An- 
tietam  was  fought  Wednesday,  and  until  Saturday  I 
could  not  find  out  whether  we  had  gained  a  victory 
or  lost  a  battle.  It  was  then  too  late  to  issue  the 
proclamation  that  day,  and  the  fact  is  I  fixed  it  up  a 
little  Sunday,  and  Monday  I  let  them  have  it." 

Men  will  probably  entertain  different  opinions  of 
one  part  of  Lincoln's  character.  He  not  only  pos- 
sessed the  apparently  innate  faculty  of  comprehend- 
ing the  tendency,  purposes  and  opinions  of  masses 
of  men,  but  he  observed  and  measured  with  accu- 
racy the  peculiarities  of  individuals  who  were  about 
him,  and  made  those  individuals,  sometimes  through 
their  peculiarities  and  sometimes  in  spite  of  them, 
the  instruments  or  agents  of  his  own  views.  Of 
the  three  chief  men  in  his  Cabinet,  Seward,  Chase 
and  Stanton,   Mr.   Stanton  was    the  only    one  who 


BY  GEORGE    S.    BOUT  WELL.  I  27 

never  thus  yielded  to  this  power  of  the  President. 
The  reason  was  creditable  alike  to  the  President  and 
to  Mr.  Stanton.  Mr.  Stanton  was  frank  and  fearless 
in  his  office,  devoted  to  duty,  destitute  of  ambition, 
and  uncompromising  in  his  views  touching  emanci- 
pation and  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion.  The 
popular  sentiment  of  the  day  made  no  impression 
upon  him.  He  was  always  ready  for  every  forward 
movement,  and  he  could  never  be  reconciled  to  a 
backward  step,  either  in  the  field  or  the  Cabinet.  It 
is  no  injustice  to  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Chase  to  say 
that  they  had  ambitions  which  under  some  circum- 
stances might  disturb  the  judgment.  These  ambi- 
tions and  their  tendencies  could  not  escape  the 
notice  of  the  President. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  indifferent  to  those  matters  of 
government  that  were  relatively  unimportant ;  but 
he  devoted  himself  with  conscientious  diligence  to 
the  graver  questions  and  topics  of  official  duty,  and 
in  the  first  months  of  his  administration,  at  a  mo- 
ment of  supreme  peril,  by  his  pre-eminent  wisdom, 
of  which  there  remains  indubitable  proof,  he  saved 
the  country  from  a  foreign  war.  I  refer  to  the  letter 
of  instruction  to  Mr.  Adams,  written  in  May,  1861, 
and  relating  to  the  proclamation  of  the  Government 
of  Great  Britain  recognizing  the  belligerent  charac- 
ter of  the  Confederate  States. 

In  the  greatest  exigencies  his  power  of  judging 


128  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

immediately  and  wisely  did  not  desert  him.  On  the 
eve  of  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  General  Hooker  re- 
signed the  command  of  the  army.  This  act  was  a 
painful,  a  terrible  surprise  to  Mr.  Stanton  and  the 
President.  Mr.  Stanton's  account  to  me  was  this  : 
"  When  I  received  the  dispatch  my  heart  sank 
within  me,  and  I  was  more  depressed  than  at  any 
other  moment  of  the  war.  I  could  not  say  that  any 
other  officer  knew  General  Hooker's  plans,  or  the 
position  even  of  the  various  divisions  of  the  army. 
I  sent  for  the  President  to  come  to  the  War  Office 
at  once.  It  was  in  the  evening,  but  the  President 
soon  appeared.  I  handed  him  the  dispatch.  As  he 
read  it  his  face  became  like  lead.  I  said,  '  What 
shall  be  done  ? '  He  replied  instantly,  '  Accept  his 
resignation.'"  In  secret,  and  without  consulting  any 
one  else,  the  President  and  Secretary  of  War  can- 
vassed the  merits  of  the  various  officers  of  the  army, 
and  decided  to  place  General  Meade  in  command. 
Of  this  decision  General  Meade  was  informed  by  a 
dispatch  sent  by  a  special  messenger,  who  reached 
his  quarters  before  the  break  of  day  the  next  morn- 
ing. It  may  be  interesting  to  know  the  grounds 
on  which  the  President  decided  to  promote  General 
Meade. 

First — That  he  was  a  good  soldier,  if  not  a  brill- 
iant one. 

Second — That  he  was  a  native  of  Pennsylvania, 


BY  GEORGE  BOUTWELL.  I29 

and  that  State  at  that  moment  was  the  battle-field 
of  the  Union. 

Third — The  President  apprehended  that  a  de- 
mand would  be  made  for  the  restoration  of  General 
McClellan,  and  this  he  desired  to  prevent  by  the 
selection  of  a  man  who  represented  the  same  politi- 
cal opinions  in  the  army  and  in  the  country. 

Mr.  Lincoln  entertained  advanced  thoucrhts  and 
opinions  upon  all  worthy  topics  of  public  concern  ; 
indeed,  his  opinions  were  in  advance,  usually,  of  his 
acts  as  a  public  man.  This  is  but  another  mode  of 
stating  the  truth,  that  he  possessed  the  faculty  of 
foreseeing  the  course  of  public  opinion — a  faculty 
essential  to  statesmen  in  popular  governments. 

In  1853,  in  a  campaign  letter,  he  said  :  "  I  go  for  all 
sharing  the  privileges  of  government  who  assist  in 
bearing  its  burdens.  Consequently,  I  go  for  admit- 
ting all  whites  to  the  right  of  suffrage  who  pay  taxes 
or  bear  arms,  by  no  means  excluding  females."  In 
1854,  he  said  :  "  Labor  is  prior  to  and  independent 
of  capital.  Capital  is  only  the  fruit  of  labor,  and 
could  never  have  existed  if  labor  had  not  first  ex- 
isted. Labor  is  the  support  of  capital,  and  deserves 
much  the  higher  consideration."  In  April  of  the 
same  year,  he  said  :  "  I  am  naturally  antislavery.  If 
slavery  is  not  wrong,  nothing  is  wrong.  I  cannot 
remember  when   I   did  not  so  think  and  feel."     In 

his    last    public    utterance    he    declared    himself    in 
9 


130  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

favor  of  extending  the  elective  franchise  to  colored 
men. 

Thus  he  died  without  one  limitation  in  his  ex- 
pressed opinions  of  the  rights  of  men  which  the 
historian  or  eulogist  will  desire  to  suppress  or  to 
qualify.  It  is  to  be  said  further  of  this  many-sided 
man,  and  most  opulent  in  natural  resources,  that  he 
takes  rank  with  the  first  logicians  and  orators  of 
every  age.  His  mastery  over  Douglas  in  the  de- 
bate of  1858  was  complete.  While  President,  and 
by  successive  letters,  he  effectually  repelled  the  at- 
tacks and  silenced  the  criticisms  of  the  New  York 
Committee,  of  which  Erastus  Corning  was  the  head, 
that  condemned  illegal  arrests  and  the  suspension 
of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus;  of  the  Union  Com- 
mittee of  the  State  of  Illinois,  that  proposed  to 
save  the  Union  if  slavery  could  be  saved  with  it ; 
of  the  Democratic  Convention  of  the  State  of  Ohio, 
that  denounced  the  arrest  of  Vallandingham  ;  and 
of  Horace  Greeley  himself,  when  he  complained  of 
the  policy  the  President  seemed  to  be  pursuing  on 
the  subject  of  emancipation. 

As  I  approach  my  conclusion,  I  ask  a  judgment  upon 
Mr.  Lincoln,  not  as  a  competitor  with  Mr.  Douglas 
for  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  but  as 
a  competitor  for  fame  with  the  first  orators  of  this 
and  other  countries,  of  this  and  other  ages. 

In  support  of  this  view  I   quote  the  closing  para- 


BY  GEORGE   S.    BOUT  WELL.  I3I 

graph  of  his  first  speech  in  the  canvass  of  1858. 
"  Our  cause,  then,  must  be  intrusted  to,  and  con- 
ducted by  its  own  undoubted  friends,  those  whose 
hands  are  free,  whose  hearts  are  in  the  work,  who 
do  care  for  the  result.  Two  years  ago  the  Repub- 
licans of  the  nation  mustered  over  thirteen  hundred 
thousand  strong.  We  did  this  under  the  single  im- 
pulse of  resistance  to  a  common  danger,  with  every 
external  circumstance  against  us.  Of  strange,  dis- 
cordant, and  even  hostile  elements,  we  gathered 
from  the  four  winds,  and  formed  and  fought  the 
battle  through,  under  the  constant,  hot  fire  of  a 
disciplined,  proud  and  pampered  enemy.  Did  we 
brave  all  then  to  falter  now  ?  Now,  when  that  same 
enemy  is  wavering,  dissevered  and  belligerent  ? 
The  result  is  not  doubtful.  We  shall  not  fail  ;  if  we 
stand  firm  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may  ac- 
celerate, or  mistakes  delay  it,  but  sooner  or  later 
the  victory  is  sure  to  come."  We  all  remember  his 
simple,  earnest,  persuasive  appeals  to  the  South,  in 
his  first  inaugural  address.  At  the  end  he  says  :  "  I 
am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends. 
We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may 
have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of  affec- 
tion. The  mystic  cords  of  memory,  stretching  from 
every  battle-field  and  patriot  grave  to  every  liv- 
ing heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land, 
will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union  when  again 


132  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels 
of  our  nature."  There  is  nothing  elsewhere  in  our 
literature  of  plaintive  entreaty  to  be  compared  with 
this.  It  combines  the  eloquence  of  the  orator  with 
the  imagery  and  inspiration  of  the  poet.  But  the 
three  great  papers  on  which  Lincoln's  fame  will  be 
carried  along  the  ages  are  the  proclamation  of 
emancipation,  his  oration  at  Gettysburg,  and  his 
second  inaugural  address.  The  oration  ranks  with 
the  noblest  productions  of  antiquity,  with  the  works 
of  Pericles,  of  Demosthenes,  of  Cicero,  and  rivals 
the  finest  passages  of  Grattan,  Burke  lor  Webster. 
This  is  not  the  opinion  of  Americans  only,  but  of 
the  cultivated  in  other  countries,  whose  judgment 
anticipates  the  judgment  of  posterity. 

When  we  consider  the  place,  the  occasion,  the  man, 
and,  more  than  all,  when  we  consider  the  oration  it- 
self, can  we  doubt  that  It  ranks  with  the  first  of 
American  classics  ?  That  literature  is  immortal  which 
commands  a  permanent  place  in  the  schools  of  a 
country,  and  is  there  any  composition  more  certain 
of  that  destiny  than  Lincoln's  oration  at  Gettysburg  ? 
"  Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago, our  fathers  brought 
forth  upon  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in 
liberty  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men 
are  created  equal.  Now,  we  are  engaged  in  a  great 
civil  war,  testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation 
so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.     We 


£V  GEORGE  S.    BOUTWELL.  1 33 

are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We  are 
met  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  it  as  the  final  resting- 
place  of  those  who  have  given  their  lives  that  that 
nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper 
that  we  should  do  this.  But  in  a  larger  sense  we  can- 
not dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hal- 
low this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead, 
who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above 
our  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little 
note  nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it 
can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us, 
the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  un- 
finished work  that  they  have  thus  far  so  nobly  car- 
ried on.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to 
the  great  task  remaining  before  us ;  that  from  these 
honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  the 
cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last  full  measure 
of  devotion ;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these 
dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain  ;  that  the  nation 
shall,  under  God,  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and 
that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the 
people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth."  But  if  all 
that  Lincoln  said  and  was  should  fail  to  carry  his 
name  and  character  to  future  ages,  the  emancipation 
of  four  million  human  beings  by  his  single  official  act 
is  a  passport  to  all  of  immortality  that  earth  can  give. 
There  is  no  other  individual  act  performed  by  any 
person  on  this  continent  that  can  be  compared  with 


I  34  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

it.  The  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Consti- 
tution, were  each  the  work  of  bodies  of  men.  The 
Proclamation  of  Emancipation  in  this  respect  stands 
alone.  The  responsibility  was  wholly  upon  Lincoln  ; 
the  glory  is  chiefly  his.  No  one  can  now  say  whether 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  or  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  or  the  Proclamation  of  Eman- 
cipation was  the  highest,  best  gift  to  the  country  and 
to  mankind.  With  the  curse  of  slavery  in  America 
there  was  no  hope  for  republican  institutions  in  other 
countries.  In  the  presence  of  slavery  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  had  lost  its  power;  practically, 
it  had  become  a  lie.  In  the  presence  of  slavery  we 
were  to  the  rest  of  mankind  and  to  ourselves  a  nation 
of  hypocrites.  The  gift  of  freedom  to  four  million 
negroes  was  not  more  valuable  to  them  than  to  us  ; 
and  not  more  valuable  to  us  than  to  the  friends  of 
liberty  in  other  parts  of  the  world. 

In  these  days,  when  politicians  and  parties  are  odi- 
ous to  many  thoughtful  and  earnest-minded  persons, 
it  may  not  be  amiss  to  look  at  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  politi- 
cian and  partisan.  These  he  was,  first  of  all  and  always. 
He  had  political  convictions  that  were  ineradicable, 
and  they  were  wholly  partisan.  As  the  rebellion  be- 
came formidable,  the  Republican  party  became  the 
party  of  the  Union;  and  as  the  party  of  the  Union, 
with  Mr.  Lincoln  at  its  head,  it  was  from  first  to  last 
the    only  political  organization  in  the   country  that 


BY  GEORGE   S.    BOUTWtLL.  1 35 

consistently,  persistently,  and  without  qualification  of 
purpose,  met,  and  in  the  end  successfully  met,  every 
demand  of  the  enemies  of  the  government,  whether 
proffered  in  diplomatic  notes  or  on  the  field  of  bat- 
tle.     He  struggled  first  for  the  Union,  and  then  for 
the  overthrow  of  slavery  as  the  only  formidable  ene- 
my of  the  Union.     These  were  his  tests  of  political 
fellowship,    and    he    carefully    excluded    from    place 
every  man  who  could  not  bear  them.      He  accepted 
the  great  and  most  manifest  lesson  of  free  govern- 
ment, that    every  wise  and  vigorous  administration 
represents  the  majority  party,  and  that  the  best  days 
of  every  free  country  are  those  days  when  a  party 
takes    and  wields  power  by  a  popular  verdict,  and 
guards  itself  at  every  step  against  the  assaults  of  a 
scrutinizing  and  vigorous  opposition.      He  accepted 
the  essential  truths  that  a  free  government  is  a  po- 
litical organization,  and  that  the  political  opinions  of 
those  intrusted  with  its  administration,   as  to  what 
the  government  should  be  and  do,  are  of  more  con- 
sequence to  the  country  than  even  their  knowledge 
of  orthography  and  etymology.     As  a  consequence, 
he  accepted  the  proposition  that  every  place  of  exec- 
utive discretion  or  of  eminent  administrative  power 
should  be  occupied  by  the  friends  of  the  government. 
This,  not  because  the  spoils  belong  to  the  victors,  but 
for  the  elevated  and  sufficient  reason  that  the  chief 
offices  of  state  are  instrumentalities  and  agencies  by 


I  36  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

which  the  majority  carry  out  their  principles,  perfect 
their  measures,  and  render  their  poHcy  acceptable  to 
the  country.  And  also  for  the  further  reason  that 
in  case  of  failure  the  administration  is  without  excuse. 
The  entire  public  policy  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  nat- 
ural outgrowth  of  his  political  principles  as  a  Repub- 
lican. Through  the  influence  of  experience  and  the 
exercise  of  power  the  politician  ripened  into  the 
statesman,  but  the  ideas,  principles,  and  purposes  of 
the  statesman  were  the  ideas,  principles,  and  purposes 
of  the  partisan  politician.  In  prosecuting  the  war 
for  the  Union,  in  the  steps  taken  for  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  slaves,  Mr.  Lincoln  appeared  to  follow 
rather  than  to  lead  the  Republican  party.  But  his 
own  views  were  more  advanced  usually  than  those  of 
his  party,  and  he  waited  patiently  and  confidently  for 
the  healthy  movements  of  public  sentiment  which  he 
well  knew  were  in  the  right  direction.  No  man  was 
ever  more  firmly  or  consistently  the  representative 
of  a  party  than  was  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  his  acknowl- 
edged greatness  is  due,  first,  to  the  wisdom  and  jus- 
tice of  the  principles  and  measures  of  the  political 
party  that  he  represented,  and,  secondly,  to  his  fidel- 
ity in  every  hour  of  his  administration,  and  in  every 
crisis  of  public  affairs,  to  the  principles,  ideas  and 
measures  of  the  party  with  which  he  was  identified. 

Having  seen  Mr.  Lincoln  as  frontiersman,  politician, 
lawyer,  stump-speaker,  orator,  statesman  and  patriot, 
it  only  remains  for  us  to  contemplate  him  as  an  his- 


BY  GEORGE   S.    BOUTWELL.  1 37 

torical  personage.  First  of  all,  it  is  to  be  said  tliat 
Mr.  Lincoln  is  next  in  fame  to  Washington,  and  it 
is  by  no  means  certain  that  history  will  not  assign 
to  Lincoln  an  equal  place,  and  this  without  any 
qualification  of  the  claims  or  disparagement  in  any 
way  of  the  virtues  of  the  Father  of  this  country. 
The  measure  of  Washington's  fame  is  full,  but  for 
many  centuries,  and  over  vast  spaces  of  the  globe 
and  among  all  peoples  passing  from  barbarism  or 
semi-servitude  to  civilization  and  freedom,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln will  be  hailed  as  the  Liberator.  In  all  gov- 
ernments struggling  for  existence,  his  example  will 
be  a  guide  and  a  help.  Neither  the  gift  of  proph- 
ecy nor  the  quality  of  imagination  is  needed  to  fore- 
cast the  steady  growth  of  Lincoln's  fame.  At  the 
close  of  the  twentieth  century  the  United  States 
will  contain  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hundred 
million  inhabitants,  and  from  one-fourth  to  one-third 
of  the  population  of  the  globe  will  then  use  the  Eng- 
lish language.  To  all  these  and  to  all  their  descend- 
ants Mr.  Lincoln  will  be  one  of  the  three  ereat  char- 
acters  of  American  history,  while  to  the  unnumbered 
millions  of  the  negro  race  in  the  United  States,  in 
Africa,  in  South  America,  and  in  the  islands  of  the 
sea,  he  will  be  the  great  figure  of  all  ages  and  of 
every  nation.  His  fame  will  increase  and  spread  with 
the  knowledge  of  Republican  institutions,  with  the 
expansion  and  power  of  the  English-speaking  race, 
and  with  the  deeper  respect  which  civilization  will 


138  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

create  for  whatever  is  attractive  in  personal  charac- 
ter, wise  in  the  administration  of  pubhc  affairs,  just 
in  poHcy,  or  Hberal  and  comprehensive  in  the  exer- 
cise of  constitutional  and  extra-constitutional  powers. 

It  was  but  an  inadequate  recognition  of  the  char- 
acter and  services  of  Mr.  Lincoln  that  was  made  by 
the  patriots  of  Rome  when  they  chose  a  fragment 
from  the  wall  of  Servius  TuUius  and  sent  it  to  the 
President  with  this  inscription:  "To  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, President  for  the  second  time  of  the  American 
Republic,  citizens  of  Rome  present  this  stone',  from 
the  wall  of  Servius  TuUius,  by  which  the  memory  of 
each  of  those  brave  asserters  of  Liberty  may  be  asso- 
ciated. Anno  1865."  The  final  and  nobler  tribute  to 
Mr.  Lincoln  is  yet  to  be  rendered,  not  by  a  single  city 
nor  by  the  patriots  of  a  single  country.  A  knowledge 
of  his  life  and  character  is  to  be  carried  by  civilization 
into  every  nation  and  to  every  people.  Under  him 
and  largely  through  his  acts  and  influence  justice 
became  the  vital  force  of  the  Republic.  The  war 
established  our  power.  The  policy  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  those  who  acted  with  him  secured  the  reign  of 
justice  ultimately  in  our  domestic  affairs.  Possess- 
ing power  and  exhibiting  justice,  the  nation  should 
pursue  a  policy  of  peace. 

Power,  Justice   and  Peace;  in  them  is  the  glory  of 
the  regenerated  Republic. 

GEORGE  S.  BOUTWELL. 


VII. 

Benjamin  F.  Butler. 
I. 

I  AM  asked  to  give  some  reminiscences  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  I  have  so  many  and  pleasant 
ones  that  I  do  not  know  where  to  begin  unless  at 
the  begfinning-. 

I  first  saw  Lincoln  in  1840,  making  a  speech  in 
that  memorable  campaign,  in  the  City  Hall  at  Lowell; 
and  not  again  till  I  was  more  than  twenty-one  years 
older,  when  I  called  on  him  at  the  White  House  to 
make  acknowledgments  for  my  appointment  as  ma- 
jor-general. When  he  handed  me  the  commission, 
with  some  kindly  words  of  compliment,  I  replied  :  "  I 
do  not  know  whether  I  ought  to  accept  this.  I  re- 
ceived my  orders  to  prepare  my  brigade  to  march  to 
Washington  while  trying  a  cause  to  a  jury.  I  stated 
the  fact  to  the  court  and  asked  that  the  case  mieht 
be  continued,  which  was  at  once  consented  to,  and  I 
left  to  come  here  the  second  morning  after,  my  busi- 
ness in  utter  confusion."  He  said  :  "  I  guess  we  both 
wish  we  were  back  trying  cases,"  with  a  quizzical 
look  upon  his  countenance.      I   said:  "Besides,  Mr. 


I40 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


President,  you  may  not  be  aware  that  I  was  the 
Breckinridge  candidate  for  Governor  in  my  State  in 
the  last  campaign,  and  did  all  I  could  to  prevent  your 
election,"  "  All  the  better,"  said  he  ;  "I  hope  your 
example  will  bring  many  of  the  same  sort  with  you." 
"  But,"  I  answered,  "  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  sup- 
port the  measures  of  your  administration,  Mr.  Pres- 
ident," "  I  do  not  care  whether  you  do  or  not,"  was 
his  reply,  "  if  you  will  fight  for  the  country."  "  I 
will  take  the  commission  and  loya-lly  serve  while  I 
may,  and  bring  it  back  to  you  when  I  can  go  with 
you  no  further."  "That  is  frank  ;  but  tell  me  where- 
in you  think  my  administration  wrong  before  you 
resign,"  said  he.     "Report  to  General  Scott." 

I  was  assigned  to  the  command  of  the  Department 
of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  and  didn't  see  Mr. 
Lincoln  again  until  after  the  capture  of  Hatteras, 
about  the  first  of  September,  the  news  of  which  I 
was  able  to  bring  him  in  person,  and  he  gave  me 
leave  to  come  home  and  look  after  my  private  busi- 
ness, as  I  had  been  relieved  from  command  at  Fort- 
ress Monroe  by  Brevet  Lieutenant-General  Wool. 

When  I  returned  to  Washington,  Lincoln  sent  for 
me,  and  after  greetings  said :  "  General,  you  are  out 
of  a  job  ;  now,  if  we  only  had  the  troops,  I  would  like 
to  have  an  expedition  either  against  Mobile,  New 
Orleans,  or  Galveston.  Filling  up  regiments  is  going 
on  very  slowly."     I  said:  "Mr.  President,  you  gave 


BV  BENJAMIN  F.    BUTLER.  \^\ 

me  permission  to  tell  you  when  I  differed  from  the 
action  of  the  administration."  He  said  hastily  :  "  You 
think  we  are  wrong,  do  you  ?  "  I  said  :  "  Yes,  in  this: 
You  are  making  this  too  much  a  party  war.  That 
perhaps  is  not  the  fault  of  the  administration  but  the 
result  of  political  conditions.  All  the  northern  Gov- 
ernors are  Republicans,  and  they  of  course  appoint 
only  their  Republican  friends  as  officers  of  regiments, 
and  then  the  officers  only  recruit  Republicans.  Now 
this  war  cannot  go  on  as  a  party  war.  You  must  get 
the  Democrats  in  it,  and  there  are  thousands  of  patri- 
otic Democrats  who  would  go  into  it  if  they  could  see 
any  opportunity  on  equal  terms  with  Republicans. 
Besides,  it  is  not  good  politics.  An  election  is  coming 
on  for  Congressmen  next  year,  and  if  you  get  all  the 
Republicans  sent  out  as  soldiers  and  the  Democrats 
not  interested,  I  do  not  see  but  you  will  be  beaten." 
He  said:  "There  is  meat  in  that.  General,"  a  favorite 
expression  of  his  ;  "  what  is  your  suggestion  ?  "  I  said : 
"  Empower  me  to  raise  volunteers  for  the  United 
States  and  select  the  officers,  and  I  will  go  to  New 
England  and  raise  a  division  of  6,000  men  in  sixty 
days.  If  you  will  give  me  power  to  select  the  offi- 
cers I  shall  choose  all  Democrats.  And  if  you  put 
epaulets  on  their  soldiers  they  will  be  as  true  to  the 
country  as  I  hope  I  am."  He  said:  "Draw  such  an 
order  as  you  want,  but  don't  get  me  into  any  scrape 
with  the  Governors  about  the  appointments  of  the 


142 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOIN 


officers  if  you  can  help  it."  The  order  was  signed, 
the  necessary  funds  were  furnished  the  next  day, 
and  I  started  for  New  England ;  in  ninety  days  I 
had  6,000  men  enlisted,  and  was  ordered  to  make 
preparations  for  an  expedition  to  Ship  Island,  and 
the  last  portion  of  that  expedition  sailed  on  the  25th 
qf  February,  1862. 

All  the  New  England  Governors  appointed  Dem- 
ocratic officers  of  my  selection  save  one.  And  this 
plan  was  followed  by  Governors  of  the  Northern  and 
Western  States,  which  had  not  been  done  before  in 
cases  of  civilians  who  had  not  been  educated  at 
West  Point.  Before  I  left  Washington  I  called 
upon  the  President  to  take  leave  of  him.  He  re- 
ceived me  very  cordially,  and  said  :  "  Good-by,  Gen- 
ral ;  get  into  New  Orleans  if  you  can,  and  the  back- 
bone of  the  rebellion  will  be  broken.  It  is  of  more 
importance  than  anything  else  that  can  now  be  done; 
but  don't  interfere  with  the  slavery  question,  as  Fre- 
mont has  done  at  St.  Louis,  and  as  your  man  Phelps 
has  been  doing  on  Ship  Island."  I  said  :  "  May  I  not 
arm  the  negroes?"  He  said:  "Not  yet;  not  yet." 
I  said:  "Jackson  did."  He  answered  :  "But  not  to 
fight  against  their  masters,  but  with  them."  I  re- 
plied: "  I  will  wait  for  the  word  or  the  necessity,  Mr. 
President."     "  That's  right ;  God  be  with  you." 

On  my  return  from  New  Orleans  the  first  of  Jan- 
uary, 1863,  I   received  from  an  officer  of  a  revenue 


BV  BENJAMIN  F.    BUTLER.  1 43 

cutter  In  New  York  harbor  a  kindly  note  from  Lin- 
coln asking  me  to  come  to  Washington  at  once,  with 
which  I  complied.  After  greetings,  I  said  :  "  Why- 
was  I  relieved,  Mr.  President,  from  command  at  New 
Orleans?"  "I  do  not  know,  General,"  was  the  an- 
swer ;  "  something  about  foreign  affairs  ;  ask  Seward. 
Do  you  want  to  go  back  again  to  the  Mississippi 
River,  General?"  "  No,  Mr.  President,  not  unless  I 
can  go  back  to  New  Orleans."  He  then  produced  a 
map  which  had  been  colored  according  to  the  pro- 
portion of  white  and  slave  population  in  the  United 
States  bordering  on  the  Mississippi,  and  said  :  "  See 
that  black  cloud.  General.  If  it  is  not  under  some 
control  soon,  shall  we  not  have  trouble  there  ? 
Hadn't  you  better  go  down  to  Vicksburg?"  "  No," 
I  said,  "the  black  cloud  you  can  control  by  coming 
up  river  as  well  as  going  down.  I  prefer  to  go  home 
rather  than  to  go  anywhere  else  in  the  south-west 
than  to  New  Orleans."  He  said  :  "  I  am  sorry,  Gen- 
eral, that  you  won't  go.  I  can't  send  you  to  New 
Orleans  without  doing  injustice  to  General  Banks, 
who  has  not  yet  been  tried  there."  "  And  I  can't 
consistently  with  self-respect  go  anywhere  else  in  the 
south-west  from  which  I  have  just  been  relieved." 

Some  months  after  this  interview,  beine  at  Wash- 
ington  on  some  business  matter,  I  called  to  pay  my 
respects  to  the  President,  and  he  said  to  me  jocosely, 
"  Well,  General,  you  have  had  some  time  with  noth- 


144  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ing  to  do  but  to  look  on  ;  any  more  criticisms  ?"  I 
said:  "Yes,  Mr.  President,  the  bounties  which  are 
now  being  paid  to  new  recruits  cause  very  large  de- 
sertions. Men  desert  and  go  home,  and  get  the 
bounties  and  enlist  in  other  regiments."  "  That  is 
too  true,"  he  replied,  "but  how  can  we  prevent  it!" 
"  By  vigorously  shooting  every  man  who  is  caught 
as  a  deserter  until  it  is  found  to  be  a  dangerous  busi- 
ness." A  saddened,  weary  look  came  over  his  face 
which  I  had  never  seen  before,  and  he  slowly  replied, 
"  You  may  be  right — probably  are  so  ;  but  God  help 
me,  how  can  I  have  a  butcher's  day  every  Friday  in 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac?"  The  subject  seemed 
to  me  to  be  too  painful  to  him  to  be  further  pursued. 
In  the  later  summer  I  was  invited  by  the  President 
to  ride  with  him  in  the  evening  out  to  the  Soldiers' 
Home,  some  two  miles,  a  portion  of  the  way  being 
quite  lonely.  He  had  no  guard — not  even  an  orderly 
on  the  box.  I  said  to  him  :  "  Is  it  known  that  you 
ride  thus  alone  at  night  out  to  the  Soldiers'  Home?" 
"  Oh,  yes,"  he  answered,  "  when  business  detains  me 
until  night.  I  do  go  out  earlier  as  a  rule."  I  said  : 
"  I  think  you  peril  too  much.  We  have  passed  a 
half  dozen  places  where  a  well-directed  bullet  might 
have  taken  you  off."  "Oh,"  he  replied,  "assassina- 
tion of  public  officers  is  not  an  American  crime. 
But  perhaps  it  would  relieve  the  anxiety  of  anxious 
friends  which  you  express  if  I  had  a  guard."     The 


BV  BENJAMIN  F.    BUTLER.  1 45 

next  morning  I  spoke  to  Stanton  about  it,  and  he 
afterward  insisted  upon  the  President  having  a  guard. 
In  November,  1863,  I  received  an  order  to  pro- 
ceed to  Fort  Monroe  and  resume  command  of  the 
Department  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  reliev- 
ing General  Foster.  Eii  route  through  Washing- 
ton I  called  upon  the  President  and  thanked  him 
for  this  mark  of  confidence,  and  he  said  :  "  Yes, 
General,  I  believe  in  you,  but  not  in  shooting  de- 
serters. As  a  commander  of  a  department,  you  can 
now  shoot  them  for  yourself.  But  let  me  advise  you 
not  to  amuse  yourself  by  playing  billiards  with  a 
rebel  officer  who  is  a  prisoner  of  war."  And  it  was 
thus  that  I  learned  one  of  the  causes  for  General 
Foster's  being  relieved,  which  was  for  playing  bill- 
iards with  General  Fitz  Hugh  Lee,  then  a  prisoner 
of  war.  He  then  said  :  "  I  wish  you  would  give  all 
the  attention  you  can  to  raising  negro  troops  ;  large 
numbers  of  negroes  will  probably  come  in  to  you. 
I  believe  you  raised  the  first  ones  in  New  Orleans." 
I  said :  "  Yes,  Mr.  President,  except  General  Hunter 
at  South  Carolina,  whose  negro  troops  were  dis- 
banded by  your  order."  "  Yes,"  he  said,  laughing, 
"  Hunter  is  a  very  good  fellow,  but  he  was  a  little 
too  previous  in  that."  He  then  said  good-naturedly: 
"  Don't  let  Davis  catch  you.  General ;  he  has  put  a 
price  on  your  head ;  he  will  hang  you  sure."  I  an- 
swered :  "  That's  a  game  two  can  play  at,  Mr.  Presi- 


1^6  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

dent.  If  I  ever  catch  him  I  will  remember  your 
scruples  about  capital  punishment,  and  relieve  you 
from  any  trouble  with  them  in  his  case.  He  has 
outlawed  me,  and  if  I  get  hold  of  him  I  shall  give 
him  the  law  of  the  outlaw  after  a  reasonable  time  to 
say  his  prayers." 

Lincoln  visited  my  department  twice  while  I  was 
in  command.  He  was  personally  a  very  brave  man, 
and  gave  me  the  worst  fright  of  my  life.  He  came 
to  my  head-quarters  and  said  :  "  General,  I  should 
like  to  ride  along  your  lines  and  see  them,  and  see 
the  boys  and  how  they  are  situated  in  camp."  I 
'said,  "  Very  well,  we  wall  go  after  breakfast."  I 
happened  to  have  a  very  tall,  easy-riding,  pacing 
horse,  and  as  the  President  was  rather  long  legged, 
I  tendered  him  the  use  of  him  while  I  rode  beside 
him  on  a  pony.  He  was  dressed,  as  was  his  custom, 
in  a  black  suit,  a  swallow-tail  coat,  and  tall  silk  hat. 
As  there  rode  on  the  other  side  of  him  at  first  Mr. 
Fox,  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  who  was  not  more 
than  five  feet  six  inches  in  height,  he  stood  out  as 
a  central  figure  of  the  group.  Of  course  the  staff 
officers  and  orderly  were  behind.  When  we  got  to 
the  line  of  intrenchment,  from  which  the  line  of  rebel 
pickets  was  not  more  than  300  yards,  he  towered 
high  above  the  works,  and  as  we  came  to  the  several 
encampments  the  boys  all  turned  out  and  cheered 
him  lustily.      Of   course   the   enemy's  attention  was 


BY  BENJAMIN  F.   BUTLER.  1 47 

wholly  directed  to  this  performance,  and  with  the 
glass  it  could  be  plainly  seen  that  the  eyes  of  their 
officers  were  fastened  upon  Lincoln ;  and  a  person- 
age riding  down  the  lines  cheered  by  the  soldiers 
was  a  very  unusual  thing,  so  that  the  enemy  must 
have  known  that  he  was  there.  Both  Mr.  Fox  and 
myself  said  to  him,  "  Let  us  ride  on  the  side  next  to 
the  enemy,  Mr.  President.  You  are  in  fair  rifle-shot 
of  them,  and  they  may  open  fire;  and  they  must 
know  you,  being  the  only  person  not  in  uniform, 
and  the  cheering  of  the  troops  directs  their  attention 
to  you."  "Oh,  no,"  he  said  laughing,  "the  com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  army  must  not  show  any 
cowardice  in  the  presence  of  his  soldiers,  whatever 
he  may  feel."  And  he  insisted  upon  riding  the 
whole  six  miles,  which  was  about  the  length  of  my 
intrenchments,  in  that  position,  amusing  himself  at 
intervals,  where  there  was  nothing  more  attractive, 
in  a  sort  of  competitive  examination  of  the  com- 
manding-general in  the  science  of  engineering, 
much  to  the  amusement  of  my  engineer-in-chief, 
General  Weitzel,  who  rode  on  my  left,  and  who  was 
kindly  disposed  to  prompt  me  while  the  examination 
was  going  on,  which  attracted  the  attention  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  who  said,  "  Hold  on,  Weitzel,  I  can't  beat 
you,  but  I  think  I  can  beat  Butler." 

I  give  this  incident  to  show  his  utter  unconcern 
under  circumstances  of  very  great  peril,  which  kept 


I  A  2,  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  rest  of  us  in  a  continued  and  quite  painful 
anxiety.  When  we  reached  the  left  of  the  line  we 
turned  off  toward  the  hospitals,  which  were  quite 
extensive  and  kept  in  most  admirable  order  by  my 
medical  director,  Surgeon  McCormack.  The  Presi- 
dent passed  through  all  the  wards,  stopping  and 
speaking  very  kindly  to  some  of  the  poor  fellows  as 
they  lay  on  their  cots,  and  occasionally  administer- 
ing a  few  words  of  commendation  to  the  ward  mas- 
ter.  Sometimes  when  reaching  a  patient  who  showed 
much  suffering  the  President's  eyes  would  glisten 
with  tears.  The  effect  of  his  presence  upon  these 
sick  men  was  wonderful,  and  his  visit  did  great 
good,  for  there  was  no  medicine  which  was  equal  to 
the  cheerfulness  which  his  visit  so  largely  inspired. 

I  accompanied  him  to  Fort  Monroe,  and  after- 
ward to  Fort  Wool,  which  is  on  the  middle  ground 
between  the  channels  at  Hampton  Roads.  As  we 
sat  at  dinner,  before  we  took  the  boat  for  Washing- 
ton, his  mind  seemed  to  be  preoccupied,  and  he 
hardly  did  justice  to  the  best  dinner  our  resources 
could  provide  for  him.  I  said,  "  I  hope  you  are  not 
unwell;  you  do  not  eat,  Mr.  President?"  "I  am 
well  enough,"  was  the  reply;  "  but  would  to  God  this 
dinner  or  provisions  like  it  were  with  our  poor  pris- 
oners in  Andersonville. 

Not  long  afterward  I  had  occasion  to  visit 
Washington,  and   I   took  with   me   the  record  of  a 


BY  BENJAMIN  F.    BUTLER.  1 49 

court-martial  wherein  I  had  approved  a  sentence  of 
death,  and,  upon  reflection  and  re-examination  of  the 
record,  had  some  doubt  as  to  the  entire  sufficiency 
of  the  evidence.  The  order  for  execution  at  a 
future  day  had  been  promulgated,  and  although  I 
might  have  commuted  the  sentence  even  then,  yet 
I  thought  a  pardon  had  better  come  from  the  Presi- 
dent, perhaps  induced  by  the  thought  that  a  pardon 
from  him  would  be  no  reflection  upon  the  court,  or 
intimation  that  the  commading  general  ever  had 
any  occasion  to  change  his  mind  upon  such  matter. 
I  called  upon  the  President,  laid  the  record  down 
before  him,  and  in  a  few  words  explained  it.  He 
looked  up  and  said,  "  You  asking  me  to  pardon 
some  poor  fellow  !  Give  me  that  pen."  And  in  less 
time  than  I  can  tell  it  the  pardon  was  ordered  with- 
out further  investigation. 

Indeed  the  President  didn't  keep  his  promise  to 
allow  me  to  execute  whom  I  pleased  as  Commander 
of  the  Department,  for  he  was  not  unfrequently 
sending  down  telegraphic  orders  to  have  some  con- 
victed person  sent  to  the  Dry  Tortugas. 

I  have  given  only  such  incidents,  free  from  all  ob- 
servation of  my  own,  as  will  tend  to  illustrate  his 
character,  and  will  content  myself  with  one  which 
develops  another  phase. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  like  all  Southern  men, 
Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  understand  the  negro  character. 


150  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

He  doubted  very  much  whether  the  negro  and  the 
white  man  could  possibly  live  together  in  any  other 
condition  than  that  of  slavery  ;  and  early  after  the 
emancipation  proclamation  he  proposed  to  Congress 
to  try  the  experiment  of  negro  colonization  in  order 
to  dispose  of  those  negroes  who  should  come  within 
our  lines.  And,  as  I  remember,  speaking  from 
memory  only,  attempted  to  make  some  provision 
at  Demerara,  through  the  agency  of  Senator  Pom- 
eroy,  for  colonizing  the  negroes.  The  experiment 
was  not  fully  carried  out,  the  reasons  for  which  are 
of  no  moment  here. 

Lincoln  was  very  much  disturbed  after  the  surren- 
der of  Lee,  and  he  had  been  to  Richmond,  upon  the 
question  of  what  would  be  the  results  of  peace  in 
the  Southern  States  as  affected  by  the  contiguity  of 
the  white  and  black  races.  Shortly  before  the  time, 
as  I  remember  it,  when  Mr.  Seward  was  thrown 
from  his  carriage  and  severely  injured,  being  then  in 
Washington,  the  President  sent  for  the  writer,  and 
said,  "  General  Butler,  I  am  troubled  about  the 
negroes.  We  are  soon  to  have  peace.  We  have 
got  some  one  hundred  and  odd  thousand  negroes 
who  have  been  trained  to  arms.  When  peace  shall 
come  I  fear  lest  these  colored  men  shall  organize 
themselves  in  the  South,  especially  in  the  States 
where  the  negroes  are  in  preponderance  in  numbers, 
into  guerrilla  parties,  and  we  shall  have  down  there 


£V  BENJAMIM  F.    BUTLER.  I5I 

a  warfare  between  the  whites  and  the  negroes.  In 
the  course  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  Government 
it  will  become  a  question  of  how  the  negro  is  to  be 
disposed  of.  Would  it  not  be  possible  to  export 
them  to  some  place,  say  Liberia,  or  South  America, 
and  organize  them  into  communities  to  support 
themselves  ?  Now,  General,  I  wish  you  would  ex- 
amine the  practicability  of  such  exportation.  Your 
organization  of  the  flotilla  which  carried  your  army 
from  Yorktown  and  Fort  Monroe  to  City  Point,  and 
its  success  show  that  you  understand  such  matters. 
Will  you  give  this  your  attention,  and,  at  as  early  a 
day  as  possible,  report  to  me  your  views  upon  the 
subject."  I  replied,  "  Willingly,"  and  bowed  and 
retired.  After  some  few  days  of  examination,  with 
the  aid  of  statistics  and  calculations,  of  this  topic,  I 
repaired  to  the  President's  office  in  the  morning,  and 
said  to  him,  "  I  have  come  to  report  to  you  on  the 
question  you  have  submitted  to  me,  Mr.  President, 
about  the  exportation  of  the  negroes."  He  exhib- 
ited great  interest,  and  said,  "  Well,  what  do  you 
think  of  it  ?"  I  said  :  "  Mr.  President,  I  assume  that 
if  the  negro  is  to  be  sent  away  on  shipboard  you 
do  not  propose  to  enact  the  horrors  of  the  mid- 
dle passage,  but  would  give  the  negroes  the  air- 
space that  the  law  provides  for  emigrants."  He 
said,  "  Certainly."  "  Well,  then,  here  are  some 
calculations  which  will  show  you  that  if  you   under- 


152  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

take  to  export  all  of  the  negroes — and  I  do  not 
see  how  you  can  take  one  portion  differently  from 
another — negro  children  will  be  born  faster  than 
your  whole  naval  and  merchant  vessels,  if  substan- 
tially all  of  them  were  devoted  to  that  use,  can  carry 
them  from  the  country  ;  especially  as  I  believe  that 
their  increase  will  be  much  greater  in  a  state  of  free- 
dom than  of  slavery,  because  the  commingling  of  the 
two  races  does  not  tend  to  productiveness."  He  ex- 
amined my  tables  carefully  for  some  considerable 
time,  and  then  he  looked  up  sadly  and  said  :  "  Your 
deductions  seem  to  be  correct,  General.  But  what 
can  we  do  ?  "  I  replied  :  "  If  I  understand  you,  Mr. 
President,  your  theory  is  this  :  That  the  negro  sol- 
diers we  have  enlisted  will  not  return  to  the  peaceful 
pursuits  of  laboring  men,  but  will  become  a  class  of 
guerrillas  and  criminals.  Now,  while  I  do  not  see, 
under  the  Constitution,  even  with  all  the  aid  of  Con- 
gress, how  you  can  export  a  class  of  people  who  are 
citizens  against  their  will,  yet  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  can  dispose  of  soldiers  quite  arbitrarily.  Now, 
then,  we  have  large  quantities  of  clothing  to  clothe 
them,  large  quantities  of  provision  with  which  to 
supply  them,  and  arms  and  everything  necessary  for 
them,  even  to  spades  and  shovels,  mules  and  wagons. 
Our  war  has  shown  that  an  army  organization  is  the 
very  best  for  digging  up  the  soil  and  making  in- 
trenchments.      Witness  the  very  many  miles  of  in- 


BY  BENJAMIN  F.   BUTLER.  I  53 

trenchments  that  our  soldiers  have  dug  out.  I  know 
of  a  concession  of  the  United  States  of  Colombia 
for  a  tract  of  thirty  miles  wide  across  the  Isthmus 
of  Panama  for  opening  a  ship  canal.  The  enlist- 
ments of  the  neo^roes  have  all  of  them  from  two  to 
three  years  to  run.  Why  not  send  them  all  down 
there  to  dig  the  canal  ?  They  will  withstand  the 
climate,  and  the  work  can  be  done  with  less  cost 
to  the  United  States  in  that  way  than  in  any 
other.  If  you  choose,  I  will  take  command  of  the 
expedition.  We  will  take  our  arms  with  us,  and  I 
need  not  suggest  to  you  that  we  will  need  nobody 
sent  down  to  guard  us  from  the  interference  of  any 
nation.  We  will  proceed  to  cultivate  the  land  and 
supply  ourselves  with  all  the  fresh  food  that  can  be 
raised  in  the  tropics,  which  will  be  all  that  will  be 
needed,  and  your  stores  of  provisions  and  supplies 
of  clothinof  will  furnish  all  the  rest.  Shall  I  work 
out  the  details  of  such  an  expedition  for  you,  Mr. 
President?"  He  reflected  for  some  time,  and  then 
said :  "  There  is  meat  in  that  suggestion,  General 
Butler ;  there  is  meat  in  that  suggestion.  Go  and 
talk  to  Seward,  and  see  what  foreign  complication 
there  will  be  about  it.  Then  think  it  over,  get  your 
figures  made,  and  come  to  me  again  as  soon  as  you 
can.  If  the  plan  has  no  other  merit,  it  will  rid  the 
country  of  the  colored  soldiers,"  "Oh,"  said  I,  "it 
will  do  more  than  that.     After  we  eet  down  there 


154  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

we  shall  make  a  humble  petition  for  you  to  send 
our  wives  and  children  to  us,  which  you  can't  well 
refuse,  and  then  you  will  have  a  United  States  col- 
ony in  that  region  which  will  hold  its  own  against  all 
comers,  and  be  contented  and  happy."  "Yes,  yes," 
said  he,  "that's  it ;  go  and  see  Seward." 

I  left  the  office,  called  upon  the  Secretary  of 
State,  who  received  me  kindly,  and  explained  in  a 
few  words  what  the  President  wanted.  He  said  : 
"  Yes,  General,  I  know  that  the  President  is  greatly 
worried  upon  this  subject.  He  has  spoken  to  me  of 
it  frequently,  and  yours  may  be  a  solution  of  it ; 
but  to-day  is  my  mail  day.  I  am  very  much  driven 
with  what  must  be  done  to-day ;  but  I  dine,  as  you 
know,  at  six  o'clock.  Come  and  take  a  family  dinner 
with  me,  and  afterward,  over  an  indifferent  cigar, 
we  will  talk  this  matter  over  fully." 

But  that  evening  Secretary  Seward,  in  his  drive 
before  dinner,  was  thrown  from  his  carriage  and 
severely  injured,  his  jaw  being  broken,  and  he  was 
confined  to  his  bed  until  the  assassination  of  Lincoln, 
and  the  attempted  murder  of  himself  by  one  of  the 
confederates  of  Booth,  so  that  the  subject  could 
never  be  again  mentioned  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 


BV  BENJAMIN  F.    BUTLER.  1 55 


II. 


There  are  two  incidents  in  regard  to  the  nomi- 
nation of  Vice-President  in  1864  which  for  obvious 
reasons  did  not  get  into  the  newspapers  of  that  day, 
but  which  bit  of  history  may  be  of  interest. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Chase  was  using 
his  position  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  aid  in 
his  candidature  for  the  Presidency  as  early  as  the  win- 
ter and  spring  of  1864.  That  was  supposed  to  have 
created  some  coolness  between  him  and  Mr.  Lincoln. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  that  year,  a  prominent 
Treasury  official,  who  held  his  office  directly  from 
Mr.  Chase,  without  the  intervention  of  either  the 
President  or  the  Senate,  but  yet  who  controlled  the 
disposition  of  more  property  and  the  avenues  of 
making  more  fortunes  than  any  other  subordinate 
Treasury  official,  and  who  afterward  held  as  large 
a  controlling  influence  with  Mr.  Seward,  but  in  quite 
a  different  direction,  came  to  the  head-quarters  of 
the  Department  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina, 
ostensibly  upon  official  business. 

After  that  was  finished,  the  actual  object  of  his 
visit  was  disclosed  by  a  question,  in  substance  as 
follows  : 

"  There  has  been  some  criticism,  General,  based 
on  the  assertion  that  Mr.  Chase  is  using  the  powers 


156  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  his  office  to  aid  his  Presidential  aspirations.  What 
do  you  think  of  Mr.  Chase's  action,  assuming  the  re- 
ports true  ?  " 

"  I  see  no  objection  to  his  using  his  office  to  ad- 
vance his  Presidential  aspirations,  by  every  honor- 
able means,  providing  Lincoln  will  let  him  do  it.  It 
is  none  of  my  business,  but  I  have  for  some  time 
thought  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  more  patient  than  I 
should  have  been,  and  if  he  does  not  object,  nobody 
else  has  either  the  power  or  right  to  do  so." 

"  Then,  General,  you  approve  of  Mr.  Chase's 
course  in  this  regard  ?  " 

"  Yes,  certainly;  he  has  a  right  to  use  in  a  proper 
manner  every  means  he  has  to  further  a  laudable 
ambition." 

"  As  Chase  is  a  Western  man,"  said  my  visitor, 
"  the  Vice- Presidency  had  better  come  from  the  East. 
Who,  General,  do  you  think  will  make  a  good  candi- 
date with  Mr.  Chase  ?" 

"There  are  plenty  of  good  men,"  I  answered; 
"but  as  Chase  is  very  pronounced  as  an  antislavery 
man  and  free-soiler,  I  think  that  General  John  A. 
Dix,  of  New  York,  ought  to  be  selected  to  go  on  his 
ticket,  and  thus  bring  to  his  banner,  both  in  conven- 
tion and  at  the  polls,  the  war  Democrats,  of  whom 
Mr.  Dix  claims  to  be  a  fair  representative." 

"  You  are  a  war  Democrat,  General  ;  would  you 
take  that  position  with  Mr.  Chase  yourself?" 


BV  BENJAMIN  F.    BUTLER.  I  57 

"  Are  you  specifically  authorized  by  Mr.  Chase  to 
put  to  me  that  question,  and  report  my  answer  to 
him  for  his  consideration  ?" 

"You  may  rest  assured,"  was  the  reply,  "that  I 
am  fully  empowered  by  Mr.  Chase  to  put  the  ques- 
tion, and  he  hopes  the  answer  will  be  favorable." 

"  Say,  then,  to  Mr.  Chase  that  I  have  no  desire  to 
be  Vice-President.  I  am  but  forty-five  years  old  ;  I 
am  in  command  of  a  fine  army  ;  the  closing  campaign 
of  the  war  is  about  beginning,  and  I  hope  to  be  able 
to  do  some  further  service  for  the  country,  and  I 
should  not,  at  my  time  of  life,  wish  to  be  Vice-Presi- 
dent if  I  had  no  other  position.  Assure  him  that  my 
determination  in  this  regard  has  no  connection  with 
himself  personally.  I  will  not  be  a  candidate  for  any 
elective  office  whatever  until  this  war  is  over." 

"  I  will  report  your  determination  to  Mr.  Chase, 
and  I  can  assure  you  that  from  what  I  know  of  his 
feelings  he  will  hear  it  with  regret." 

Within  three  weeks  afterward  a  crentleman  who 
stood  very  high  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  confidence  came  to 
me  at  Fort  Monroe.  This  was  after  I  had  learned 
that  Grant  had  allotted  to  me  a  not  unimportant  part 
in  the  coming  campaign  around  Richmond,  of  the 
results  of  which  I  had  the  highest  hope,  and  for 
which  I  had  been  laboring,  and  the  story  of  which 
has  not  yet  been  told,  but  may  be  hereafter. 

The  gentleman  informed  me  that  he  came  from 


I  eg  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOIN 

Mr.  Lincoln  ;  this  was  said  with  directness,  because 
the  messenger  and  myself  had  been  for  a  very  con- 
siderable time  in  quite  warm,  friendly  relations,  and 
I  owed  much  to  him,  which  I  can  never  repay  save 
with  gratitude. 

He  said  :  "  The  President,  as  you  know,  intends 
to  be  a  candidate  for  re-election,  and  as  his  friends 
indicate  that  Mr.  Hamlin  is  no  longer  to  be  a  candi- 
date for  Vice-President,  and  as  he  is  from  New  Eng- 
land, the  President  thinks  that  his  place  should  be 
filled  by  some  one  from  that  section  ;  and  aside  from 
reasons  of  personal  friendship  which  would  make  it 
pleasant  to  have  you  with  him,  he  believes  that,  be- 
ing the  first  prominent  Democrat  who  volunteered 
for  the  war,  your  candidature  would  add  strength  to 
the  ticket,  especially  with  the  war  Democrats,  and 
he  hopes  that  you  will  allow  your  friends  to  co-oper- 
ate with  his  to  place  you  in  that  position." 

I  answered :  "  Please  say  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  that 
while  I  appreciate  with  the  fullest  sensibility  this  act 
of  friendship  and  the  compliment  he  pays  me,  yet  I 
must  decline.  Tell  him,"  I  said  laughingly,  "with 
the  prospects  of  the  campaign,  I  would  not  quit  the 
field  to  be  Vice-President,  even  with  himself  as  Pres- 
ident, unless  he  will  give  me  bond  with  sureties,  in 
the  full  sum  of  his  four  years'  salary,  that  he  will  die 
or  resign  within  three  months  after  his  inauguration. 
Ask  him  what  he  thinks  I  have  done  to  deserve  the 


BY  BENJAMIN  F.    BUTLER.  I  59 

punishment,  at  forty-six  years  of  age,  of  being  made 
to  sit  as  presiding  officer  over  the  Senate,  to  listen 
for  four  years  to  debates,  more  or  less  stupid,  in 
which  I  can  take  no  part  nor  say  a  word,  nor  even  be 
allowed  a  vote  upon  any  subject  which  concerns  the 
welfare  of  the  country,  except  when  my  enemies 
might  think  my  vote  would  injure  me  in  the  estima- 
tion of  the  people,  and  therefore,  by  some  parlia- 
mentary trick,  make  a  tie  on  such  question,  so  I 
should  be  compelled  to  vote  ;  and  then  at  the  end  of 
four  years  (as  nowadays  no  Vice-President  is  ever 
elected  President),  and  because  of  the  dignity  of  the 
position  I  had  held,  not  to  be  permitted  to  go  on 
with  my  profession,  and  therefore  with  nothing  left 
for  me  to  do  save  to  ornament  my  lot  in  the  ceme- 
tery tastefully,  and  get  into  it  gracefully  and  respect- 
ably, as  a  Vice-President  should  do.  No,  no,  my 
friend ;  tell  the  President  I  will  do  everything  I  can 
to  aid  in  his  election  if  nominated,  and  that  I  hope 
he  will  be,  as  until  this  war  is  finished  there  should 
be  no  change  of  administration." 

"  I  am  sorry  you  won't  go  with  us,"  replied  my 
friend,  "but  I  think  you  are  sound  in  your  judg- 
ment." 

I  asked  :  "  Is  Chase  making  any  headway  in  his 
candidature  ? " 

"  Yes,  some  ;  but  he  is  using  the  whole  power  of 
the  Treasury  to  help  himself." 


l6o  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"Well,  that's  the  right  thing  for  him  to  do." 

"  Do  you  really  think  so  ?" 

"  Yes  ;  why  ought  not  he  to  do  it,  if  Lincoln  lets 
him  ?" 

"  How  can  Lincoln  help  letting  him?" 

"  By  tipping  him  out.  If  I  were  Lincoln  I  should 
say  to  Mr.  Chase,  '  My  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
you  know  that  I  am  a  candidate  for  re-election,  as  I 
suppose  it  is  proper  for  me  to  be.  Now  every  one 
of  my  equals  has  a  right  to  be  a  candidate  against 
me,  and  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  is  my 
equal  who  is  not  my  subordinate.  Now,  if  you  de- 
sire to  be  a  candidate,  I  will  give  you  the  fullest  op- 
portunity to  be  one,  by  making  you  my  equal  and 
not  my  subordinate,  and  I  will  do  that  in  any  way 
that  will  be  the  most  pleasant  to  you,  but  things  can- 
not stay  as  they  now  are.'  You  see,  I  think  it  is  Mr. 
Lincoln's  and  not  Mr.  Chase's  fault  that  he  is  using 
the  Treasury  against  Mr.  Lincoln." 

"  Right  again  !  "  said  my  friend,  "  I  will  tell  Mr. 
Lincoln  every  word  you  have  said." 

What  happened  after  is  a  matter  of  history. 

BENJAMIN   F.   BUTLER. 


VIII. 

Charles  Carlton  Coffin. 
I. 

THE  one  political  convention  surpassing  all 
others  in  enthusiasm,  earnestness  of  purpose, 
and  fidelity  to  principle,  was  that  of  the  Republican 
Party  held  in  Chicago,  May,  i860.  The  spirit  ani- 
mating it  was  prefigured  in  the  erection  of  the  "wig- 
wam," an  edifice  in  which  it  was  held.  The  conven- 
tion was  the  sudden  bursting  into  flower  of  the 
growing  spirit  of  the  free  States  against  the  aggres- 
sions of  slavery. 

The  enthusiasm  was  stimulated  by  the  conviction 
that  through  the  dissensions  of  the  Democratic 
Party  the  nominee  of  the  convention  would  in  all 
probability  receive  a  majority  of  the  electoral  votes. 

It  was  the  opinion  of  most  men  east  of  Ohio  that 
Mr.  Seward  of  New  York  would  receive  the  nomi- 
nation. There  were  three  other  prominent  candi- 
dates— Salmon  P.  Chase  of  Ohio,  Edward  Bates  of 
Missouri,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois. 

Several  weeks  prior  to  the  assembling  of  the  con- 
vention, I   started   from  Boston  on  a  tour  of  obser- 


1 62  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

vation  through  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsyl- 
vania, to  Baltimore,  attending  the  Whig  Convention 
in  that  city,  which  nominated  John  Bell  of  Tennessee, 
and  Edward  Everett  of  Massachusetts.  It  was  the 
last  assembling  of  that  party  which  had  numbered 
among  its  leaders  Daniel  Webster  and  Henry 
Clay — the  raking  together  the  embers  of  a  dying 
political  organization,  appropriately  held  in  an  old 
church  from  which  worshipers  had  forever  de- 
parted. Southern  men  controlled  the  convention. 
They  were  enthusiastic  over  the  nomination  of  Bell, 
but  moderate  in  their  demonstration  over  Everett's 
name,  although  public  opinion  in  the  Northern  States 
regarded  Everett  as  by  far  the  greater  statesman 
of  the  two.  One  editor  called  it  the  "  kangaroo  " 
ticket,  and  said  that  its  hind  legs  were  longest.  It 
was  noticeable  that  the  antagonism  of  the  Southern 
Whigs  was  manifestly  greater  toward  the  "  black 
Republicans  "  than  toward  either  wing  of  the 
divided  Democratic  Party. 

From  Baltimore  I  passed  on  to  Washington,  find- 
ing the  name  of  Mr.  Seward  upon  the  lips  of  most 
Republicans  as  the  probable  nominee  of  the  ap- 
proaching convention.  Mr.  Seward  expected  to  be 
nominated.  I  recall  a  day  in  the  Senate  Chamber, 
and  a  conversation  with  Henry  Wilson,  Senator 
from  Massachusetts.  We  were  seated  on  a  sofa, 
when  Mr.  Seward  entered  from  the  cloak-room. 


BV  CHARLES   CARLTON  COFFLN.  1 63 

"  There  is  our  future  President,"  said  Mr.  Wilson 
"  He  will  be  nominated  at  Chicago,  and  elected. 
He  feels  it.     You  can  see  it  in  his  bearinor." 

Of  the  public  men  of  the  period,  there  was  no 
keener  observer  than  Senator  Wilson — Thaddeus 
Stevens  of  Pennsylvania  being  a  possible  exception 
— no  one  whose  fingers  detected  more  closely  the 
beating  of  the  heart  of  the  people  of  the  Northern 
States.  Mr.  Wilson  knew  every  phase  of  public 
sentiment  in  Massachusetts,  comprehended  New 
England  far  beyond  any  other  man,  but  he  did  not 
fully  comprehend  the  trend  of  thought  and  feeling 
in  the  great  West — the  rapid  growth  and  change 
which  was  going  on  during  those  spring  days  in  the 
Republican  States  beyond  the  Alleghanies.  Had  he 
seen  what  I  saw  a  week  later  he  would  not  have 
so  readily  concluded  that  Mr.  Seward  was  to  be  the 
next  President. 

My  journey  from  Philadelphia  to  Pittsburg  suf- 
ficed to  convince  me  that  Mr.  Seward  would  not  re- 
ceive the  votes  of  Pennsylvania  in  the  convention. 
A  quarter  of  a  century  ago  there  was  a  rivalry 
between  the  two  States  for  political  prestige  and 
power  which  has  disappeared  with  the  changed  con- 
dition of  affairs.  New  York  gloried  in  being  the 
"Empire"  State,  while  Pennsylvania  plumed  herself 
upon  being  the  "keystone"  which  sustained  the 
Republic.     It  was  plain  to  me  that   Pennsylvanian 


164  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Republicans  had  no  intention  of  giving  their  votes 
to  the  favorite  son  of  New  York,  but  would  with- 
hold them  from  any  candidate  till  they  could  be 
given  with  decisive  result. 

In  Ohio  I  found  a  moderate  enthusiasm  for  Mr. 
Chase,  but  I  could  discover  no  particular  organiza- 
tion to  promote  his  candidacy.  Of  public  sentiment 
in  Indiana  I  could  form  no  definite  opinion.  There 
had  been  no  crystallizing  of  sentiment  other  than 
that  the  nominee  must  be  a  Western  man. 

II. 

Arriving  in  Chicago  several  days  in  advance  of 
the  assembling  of  the  convention,  I  found  a  number 
of  delegates  from  Missouri  actively  advocating  the 
nomination  of  Mr.  Bates.  In  no  city  of  the  Union 
had  there  been  so  rapid  a  development  of  Republi- 
can sentiment  as  in  St.  Louis.  The  Republicans  of 
that  city  believed,  or  affected  to  believe,  that  with 
Mr.  Bates  they  could  secure  the  electoral  vote  of 
the  State. 

There  was  but  one  name  on  the  lips  of  the  Repub- 
licans of  Illinois — that  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  They 
knew  him  personally;  had  looked  into  his  face  at 
the  mass  meetings  in  the  memorable  contest  with 
Douglas;  had  listened  to  his  plain,  incisive  argu- 
ments, as  clear  and  demonstrable  as  a  proposition 
from  Euclid.     Outside  of  Illinois  he  was  the  'Tail- 


BY  CHARLES  CARLTON  COFFIN.  1 65 

splitter" — a  plain,  ungainly  man,  a  homcspitn  candi- 
date, once  member  of  Congress,  but  unacquainted 
with  public  affairs  as  the  ruler  of  a  nation. 

Thurlow  Weed  had  charge  of  Mr.  Seward's  affairs, 
and  employed  all  the  means  and  appliances  known 
to  New  York  political  managers — even  to  enrolling 
delegates  who  reported  themselves  from  Texas.  I 
discovered  a  band  of  claquers  in  the  interest  of  Mr. 
Seward,  who  hurrahed  upon  the  streets  and  in  the 
convention  at  every  mention  of  his  name.  They 
overdid  their  part. 

Mr.  Norman  B.  Judd  had  charge  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
canvass,  but  there  had  been  no  such  systematic  pull- 
ing of  distant  wires  or  organization  on  his  part. 
Nor  was  there  need.  It  was  manifest  from  the  out- 
set that  there  was  a  ground-swell  of  public  opinion, 
if  I  may  use  the  term,  which  promised  to  sweep  all 
before  it,  and  which  rose,  like  the  tides  of  the  sea, 
during  the  second  day  of  the  convention,  brought 
into  quick  action  by  the  determination  to  devour 
Weed's  organized  band. 

Arnold,  in  his  Life  of  Lincoln,  has  narrated  how 
it  was  done,  by  the  employment  of  a  Dr.  Ames,  who 
had  a  voice  sufficiently  powerful  to  be  heard  above 
the  uproar  of  the  lake  in  the  wildest  storm.  He  was 
a  Democrat,  but  readily  consented  to  shout  for  Lin- 
coln. With  an  organized  band  he  was  placed  at  one 
end  of  the  wigwam  ;  another  body  was  stationed  at 


l66  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  opposite  end.  Mr.  Cook,  of  Ottawa,  delegate, 
was  upon  the  platform.  Whenever  he  waved  his 
handkerchief  they  were  to  cheer.  It  was  that  hand- 
kerchief which  set  the  ten  thousand  Illinoisians  in 
the  wigwam  wild  with  enthusiasm,  and  which  nomi- 
nated Abraham  Lincoln  on  the  second  ballot. 

During  the  convention  I  chanced  to  sit  at  a  small 
table  with  Thurlow  Weed,  and  had  an  excellent  op- 
portunity to  study  his  face.  I  doubt  if  during  his 
long  and  eventful  life  he  ever  experienced  a  greater 
disappointment  or  a  keener  sorrow  than  at  that  mo- 
ment. I  saw  him  press  his  fingers  hard  upon  his 
eyelids  to  keep  back  the  tears.  His  plans  had  all 
miscarried.  It  was  the  sinking  of  a  great  hope. 
The  rail-splitter,  story  teller — the  ungainly,  unedu- 
cated practitioner  of  the  Sangamon  bar — was  the 
nominee  instead  of  the  able,  learned,  classical,  pol- 
ished senator.  The  mob  had  nominated  him  !  Mr. 
Weed  did  not  comprehend  that  the  mob  in  the  wig- 
wam was  the  best  possible  representative  of  the 
rising  public  opinion.  All  this  is  preliminary,  but 
needful  to  adequately  set  forth  subsequent  scenes. 

III. 

On  the  morning  after  the  adjournment  of  the  con- 
vention a  single  passenger  car,  drawn  by  one  of  the 
fastest  locomotives  of  the  Illinois  Central  road, 
glided  out  from  the   Grand  Central  depot,  bearing 


BY  CHARLES   CARLTON  COFFLN.  1 67 

the  committee  appointed  by  the  convention  to  no- 
tify Mr.  Lincoln  of  his  nomination.  These  were 
George  Ashman,  president  of  the  convention,  who 
had  won  great  respect  by  his  ability,  manifested  as  a 
presiding  officer;  Julius  A.  Andrews  of  Massachu- 
setts, in  the  vigor  of  manhood,  who  had  electrified 
the  convention  by  his  eloquence  and  plain  common 
sense  ;  George  G.  Fogg  of  New  Hampshire,  editor 
of  the  Independent  Dcinoc7'at,  printed  at  Concord, 
who,  next  to  John  P.  Hale,  had  been  instrumental  in 
making  New  Hampshire  a  Republican  State,  after- 
wards Minister  to  Switzerland;  Wm.  B.  Kelly  of 
Pennsylvania,  the  veteran  member  of  Congress,  still 
representing  his  steadfast  constituents  ;  Caleb  Smith 
of  Indiana,  appointed  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet  ; 
Amos  Tuck  of  New  Hampshire,  member  of  Con- 
gress with  Mr.  Lincoln;  Norman  B.  Judd  of  Chi- 
cago, who  had  managed  Mr.  Lincoln's  affairs,  after- 
ward Minister  to  Berlin  ;  Judge  Carter  of  Ohio  (ap- 
pointed to  a  Washington  judgeship),  humorist,  w!t 
and  off-hand  speaker,  who  addressed  the  crowds  at 
the  railway  stations,  his  speeches  ending  with  the 
words,  "  In  the  race  for  the  Presidency,  the  Little 
Giant  (Douglas)  will  find  that  his  coat-tails  are  too 
near  the  ground  to  beat  Old  Abe."  It  was  an  allu- 
sion to  the  difference  in  stature  between  the  two 
candidates,  responded  to  by  a  yell  of  delight  on  the 
part  of  Republicans,  with  groans  from   Democrats. 


1 68  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

There  were  in  all,  including  correspondents,  about 
thirty  persons. 

The  sun  was  setting  when  we  reached  Springfield. 
A  crowd  was  gathering  in  the  public  square,  not  to 
welcome  the  committee  but  to  listen  to  a  speech 
from  John  A.  McClelland  (afterwards  general), 
member  of  Congress  from  that  district,  in  support 
of  Mr.  Douglas. 

It  was  past  eight  o'clock  Saturday  evening  when 
the  committee  called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  at  his  home 
— a  plain,  comfortable,  two-storied  house,  a  hallway 
in  the  center,  a  plain  white  paling  in  front.  The 
arrival  of  the  committee  had  awakened  no  enthu- 
siasm on  the  part  of  the  townspeople.  A  dozen 
citizens  gathered  in  the  street.  One  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's sons  was  perched  on  the  gate-post.  The  com- 
mittee entered  the  room  at  the  left  hand  of  the  hall. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  standing  in  front  of  the  fireplace, 
wearing  a  black  frock-coat.  He  bowed,  but  it  was 
not  gracefully  done.  There  was  an  evident  con- 
straint and  embarrassment.  He  stood  erect,  in  a 
stiff  and  unnatural  position,  with  downcast  eyes. 
There  was  a  diffidence  like  that  of  an  ungainly 
school-boy  standing  alone  before  a  critical  audience. 
Mr.  Ashman  stated  briefly  the  action  of  the  conven- 
tion and  the  errand  of  the  committee.  Then  came 
the  reply,  found  in  every  "life"  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  It 
was  a  sympathetic  voice,  with  an  indescribable  charm 


HOME  OF   LINCOLN,    SPRINGFIELD     ILL. 


BY  CHARLES   CARLTON  COFFIN.  169 

in  the  tones.  There  was  no  study  of  inflection  or 
cadence  for  effect,  but  a  sincerity  which  won  instant 
confidence.  The  lines  upon  his  face,  the  large  ears, 
sunken  cheeks,  enormous  nose,  shaggy  hair,  the 
deep-set  eyes,  sparkling  with  humor,  and  which 
seemed  to  be  looking  far  away,  were  distinguishing 
facial  marks.  I  do  not  know  that  any  member  of 
the  company,  other  than  Mr.  Tuck  of  New  Hamp- 
shire and  some  of  the  Western  men,  had  ever 
seen  him  before,  but  there  was  that  about  him 
which  commanded  instant  admiration.  A  stran- 
ger meeting  him  on  a  country  road,  ignorant  of 
his  history,  would  have  said,  "  He  is  no  ordinary 
man." 

Mr.  Lincoln's  reply  was  equally  brief.  With  the 
utterance  of  the  last  syllable  his  manner  instantly 
changed.  A  smile,  like  the  sun  shining  through  the 
rift  of  a  passing  cloud  sweeping  over  the  landscape, 
illuminated  his  face,  lighting  up  every  homely  fea- 
ture, as  he  grasped  the  hand  of  Mr.  Kelly. 

"You  are  a  tall  man,  Judge.  What  is  your 
heig;ht  ? " 

"Six  feet  three." 

"  I  beat  you.  I  am  six  feet  four  without  my  high- 
heeled  boots." 

"  Pennsylvania  bows  to  Illinois.  I  am  glad  that 
we  have  found  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  whom 
we  can  look  up  to,  for  we  have  been  informed  that 


I70  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

there  were  only  little  giants  in  Illinois,"  was  Mr. 
Kelly's  graceful  reply. 

All  embarrassment  was  gone.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
no  longer  the  ungainly  school-boy.  The  unnatural 
dignity  which  he  had  assumed  for  the  moment,  as  a 
barrister  of  the  Eno^lish  bar  assumes  (jown  and  horse- 
hair  wig  in  court,  was  laid  aside.  Conversation 
flowed  as  freely  and  laughingly  as  a  meadow  brook. 
There  was  a  bubbling  up  of  quaint  humor,  fragrant 
with  Western  idiom,  making  the  hour  exceedingly 
enjoyable. 

"  Mrs.  Lincoln  will  be  pleased  to  see  you,  gentle- 
men," said  Mr.  Lincoln.  "  You  will  find  her  in  the 
other  room.  You  must  be  thirsty  after  your  long 
ride.    You  will  find  a  pitcher  of  water  in  the  library." 

I  crossed  the  hall  and  entered  the  library.  There 
were  miscellaneous  books  on  the  shelves,  two  globes, 
celestial  and  terrestrial,  in  the  corners  of  the  room, 
a  plain  table  with  writing  materials  upon  it,  a  pitcher 
of  cold  water,  and  glasses,  but  no  wines  or  liquors. 
There  was  humor  in  the  invitation  to  take  a  glass 
of  water,  which  was  explained  to  me  by  a  citizen, 
who  said  that  when  it  was  known  that  the  committee 
was  coming,  several  citizens  called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  informed  him  that  some  entertainment  must  be 
provided. 

"Yes,  that  is  so.  What  ought  to  be  done  ?  Just 
let  me  know  and  I  will  attend  to  it,"  he  said. 


BY  CHARLES   CARLTON  COFFLN.  IJl 

"  O,  we  will  supply  the  needful  liquors,"  said  his 
friends. 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  I  thank  you  for 
your  kind  intentions,  but  must  respectfully  decline 
your  offer.  I  have  no  liquors  in  my  house,  and 
have  never  been  in  the  habit  of  entertaining  my 
friends  in  that  way.  I  cannot  permit  my  friends  to 
do  for  me  what  I  will  not  myself  do.  I  shall  pro- 
vide cold  water — nothing  else." 

What  Mr.  Lincoln's  feelings  may  have  been  over 
his  nomination  will  never  be  known ;  doubtless  he 
was  gratified,  but  there  was  no  visible  elation.  After 
the  momentarily  assumed  dignity  he  was  himself 
again — plain  Abraham  Lincoln — man  of  the  people. 

IV. 

I  pass  over  a  year  and  a  half  to  October  21,  1861. 
I  was  in  Washington.  The  Army  of  the  Potomac 
was  in  camp  on  Arlington  Heights,  and  at  Alexan- 
dria McClellan  was  having  his  weekly  reviews. 
There  was  much  parade  but  no  action.  "  All  quiet 
on  the  Potomac,"  sent  nightly  by  the  correspondents 
to  their  papers,  had  become  a  by-word.  The  after- 
noon was  lovely — a  rare  October  day.  I  learned 
early  in  the  day  that  something  was  going  on  up 
the  Potomac  near  Edwards'  Ferry,  by  the  troops 
under  General  Banks.  What  was  going  on  no  one 
knew,  even  at   McClellan's   head-quarters.      It   was 


I  72  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

near  sunset  when,  accompanied  by  a  fellow-corre- 
spondent, I  went  once  more  to  ascertain  what  was 
taking  place.  We  entered  the  anteroom  and  sent 
our  cards  to  General  McClellan.  While  waiting. 
President  Lincoln  came  in,  recognized  us,  reached 
out  his  hand,  spoke  of  the  beauty  of  the  afternoon, 
while  waiting  for  the  return  of  the  young  lieutenant 
who  had  gone  to  announce  his  arrival.  The  lines 
were  deeper  in  the  President's  face  than  when  I  saw 
him  in  his  own  home,  the  cheeks  more  sunken. 
They  were  lines  of  care  and  anxiety.  For  eighteen 
months  he  had  borne  a  burden  such  as  has  fallen 
upon  few  men — a  burden  as  weighty  as  that  which 
rested  upon  the  great  law-giver  of  Israel. 

"  Please  to  walk  this  way,"  said  the  lieutenant. 

We  could  hear  the  click  of  the  telegraph  in  the 
adjoining  room,  and  low  conversation  between  the 
President  and  General  McClellan,  succeeded  by  si- 
lence, excepting  the  click-click  of  the  instrument, 
which  went  on  with  its  tale  of  disaster. 

Five  minutes  passed,  and  then  Mr.  Lincoln,  unat- 
tended, with  bowed  head,  and  tears  rolling  down  his 
furrowed  cheeks,  his  face  pale  and  wan,  his  heart 
heaving  with  emotion,  passed  through  the  room.  He 
almost  fell  as  he  stepped  into  the  street,  and  we 
sprang  involuntarily  from  our  seats  to  render  assist- 
ance, but  he  did  not  fall.  With  both  hands  pressed 
upon  his  heart  he  walked   down   the  street,  not  re- 


BV  CHARLES  CARLTON   COFFIN. 


^1Z 


turning  the  salute  of  the  sentinel  pacing  his  beat  be- 
fore the  door. 

General  McClellan  came  a  moment  later.  "  I 
have  not  much  news  to  give  you,"  he  said.  "  There 
has  been  a  movement  of  troops  across  the  Poto- 
mac at  Edwards'  Ferry,  under  General  Stone,  and 
Colonel  Baker  is  reported  killed.  That  is  about  all 
I  can  give  you." 

At  that  moment  the  finale  of  the  terrible  disaster 
at  Ball's  Bluff  was  going  on — the  retreat  to  the  river, 
the  plunge  into  the  swirling  water  to  escape  the  mur- 
derous fire  flam.ing  upon  them  from  the  rifles  of  the 
victorious  Confederates.  It  was  the  news  of  the  death 
of  Colonel  E,  D.  Baker  which  stunned  President  Lin- 
coln. They  were  old-time  friends,  members  of  the 
Sangamon  bar,  had  ridden  the  circuits  together,  been 
opponents  in  debate,  but  friends  ever.  So  strong  was 
the  friendship,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  named  his  sec- 
ond son  Edward  Baker.  Colonel  Baker  had  suc- 
ceeded him  in  Congress,  had  emigrated  to  California, 
to  return  a  Senator,  to  become  President  Lincoln's 
strong  right  arm.,  to  advance  at  a  bound  to  the  front 
as  one  of  the  most  eloquent  orators  of  that  body. 
Well  do  I  recall  his  tireless  activity,  commanding 
presence  and  height,  and  sparkling  eye.  His  pres- 
ence was  an  inspiration.  Ah  !  what  a  scene  was  that 
a  few  weeks  later  when  President  Lincoln,  supported 
by  Senators  Trumbull  and  Browning  of  Illinois,  en- 


I  -4  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tered  the  draped  chamber  to  attend  the  funeral  ob- 
sequies of  his  old  friend  !  Again  the  tears  rolled 
down  his  cheeks,  as  he  heard  the  words  of  Senator 
McDougall,  recalling  the  by-gone  scenes.  Turning 
toward  Lincoln,  he  said,  "  He  loved  freedom,  Anglo- 
Saxon  freedom.  Many  years  ago  I  heard  him,  on  a 
star-lit  night  on  the  plains  of  the  far  West,  recite  the 
Battle  of  Ivry.  At  Ball's  Bluff  he  was  Henry  of 
Navarre — 

"  'And  if  my  standard-bearer  fall,  as  fall  full  well  he  may. 
For  never  saw  I  promise  yet  of  such  a  bloody  fray — 
Press  where  ye  see  my  white  plume  shine  amid  the  rank  of  war, 
And  be  your  oriflamme  to-day  the  helmet  of  Navarre.'  " 

I  doubt  if  any  other  of  the  many  tragic  events  of 
President  Lincoln's  life  ever  stunned  him  so  much 
as  that  unheralded  message  which  came  over  the 
wires  while  he  was  beside  the  instrument  on  that 
mournful  day,  October  21,  1861. 

V. 

I  come  to  the  spring  of  1865.  I  had  been  in  Sa- 
vannah, witnessed  the  departure  of  Sherman's  army 
on  its  triumphant  northern  holiday  march,  had  seen 
the  old  flag  wave  once  more  over  Sumter,  had 
heard  the  colored  troops  march  through  the  streets 
of  Charleston,  singing  "John  Brown's  body  lies 
moldering  in  the  grave,"  and  was  back  once  more  at 


£V  CHARLES   CARLTON  COFFIN. 


1/5 


City  Point  to  witness  the  last  drawing  of  the  scene 
to  Five  Forks,  which  was  designed  by  Grant  to  put 
an  end  to  the  struggle.  President  Lincoln  was  on 
the  Ocean  Qiieeji,  a  river  steamer,  at  City  Point. 
Sherman  had  reached  Goldsboro.  His  army  was  in 
need  of  supplies.  He  had  opened  the  railroad  to 
Newberne,  but  could  not  move  on  to  Bucksville  with- 
out provisions.  He  wished  to  confer  with  Grant 
before  making  the  last  move,  and  arrived  at  City 
Point  on  the  afternoon  of  March  27.  Grant  had  not 
expected  him,  and  I  doubt  not  his  coming  was  an 
agreeable  surprise,  as  it  would  enable  the  two  com- 
manders to  act  in  concert. 

I  was  early  at  General  Grant's  head-quarters  on 
the  morning  of  the  28th.  Adjutant-General  Bow- 
ers, whose  acquaintance  I  made  in  1862  on  the 
Tennessee,  was  ever  courteous.  I  was  examining 
a  map  of  the  military  situation  which  he  laid  before 
me,  when,  looking  down  the  line  of  log  huts  which 
constituted  the  head-quarters'  camp,  I  saw  General 
Grant  step  upon  the  plank-walk,  smoking  as  usual, 
and  then  the  tall  form  of  President  Lincoln,  wearing 
his  stove-pipe  hat.  It  was  a  mild  spring  morning,  but 
he  wore  an  overcoat.  Next  to  emerge  from  the  hut 
was  Sherman,  wearing  an  old  slouch  hat,  his  panta- 
loons tucked  into  his  boots,  his  uniform  faded  and 
worn.  He  was  talking  rapidly  and  emphasizing  his 
points  with  gesticulation.     The  three,  Lincoln  in  the 


I  76  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

center,  formed  the  front  rank,  and  walked  slowly 
toward  the  Adjutant-General's  office,  Sherman  talk- 
ing, the  others  respectful  listeners.  In  the  second 
rank  came  Generals  Meade,  Ord,  and  Crook.  It  was 
a  historical  group — names  which  will  live  long  in 
history.  There  were  several  other  officers  who  had 
called  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  President. 

They  came  into  the  Adjutant-General's  office, 
the  President  taking  the  precedence.  He  saw 
and  recognized  me,  extended  his  hand,  and  said 
smilingly : 

"  What  news  have  you  ?"  I  never  have  been  able 
to  settle  in  my  own  mind  the  significance  of  the 
question,  but  I  think  humor  prompted  it,  for  in 
those  days  correspondents  often  sent  news  which 
was  not  altogether  reliable. 

"  I  have  just  arrived  from  Charleston  and  Savan- 
nah," I  replied. 

"  Indeed  !  "  It  was  a  tone  indicative  of  a  pleasant 
surprise.  "Well,  I  am  right  glad  to  see  you.  How 
do  the  people  like  being  back  in  the  Union  again?" 
he  said,  as  he  sat  down  in  the  chair  placed  for  him 
by  General  Bowers. 

"  I  think  some  of  them  are  reconciled  to  it,"  I 
replied,  "  if  we  may  draw  conclusions  from  the 
action  of  one  planter,  who,  while  I  was  there,  came 
down  the  Savannah  River  with  his  whole  family — 
wife,  children,  negro   woman    and  her  children,  of 


BY  CHARLES  CARLTON  COFFIN. 


177 


whom  he  was  father — and  with  his  crop  of  cotton, 
which  he  was  anxious  to  sell  at  the  highest  price." 

The  President's  eyes  sparkled,  as  they  always  did 
when  his  humor  was  aroused. 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  see,"  he  said  with  a  laugh  which  was 
peculiarly  his  own — "  I  see  ;  patriarchal  times  once 
more  ;  Abraham,  Sarah,  Isaac,  Hagar  and  Ishmael, 
all  in  one  boat ! "  He  chuckled  a  moment,  and 
added  : 

"  I  reckon  they'll  accept  the  situation  now  that 
they  can  sell  their  cotton." 

The  maps  were  being  placed  for  his  inspection, 
that  he  might  see  the  situation  of  the  two  armies — 
Grant's  stretching  beyond  Thatcher's  Run,  ready  to 
make  its  final  move ;  Sherman's  at  Goldsboro,  in 
position  to  move  upon  Bucksville. 

"  We  shall  be  in  position  to  catch  Lee  between 
our  two  thumbs,"  said  Sherman,  who  did  pretty 
much  all  the  talking,  Grant  taking  but  little  part. 
The  stay  was  brief,  the  President  going  on  board 
the  Ocean  Oucen,  and  Sherman  a  little  later  Qfoino- 
on  board  the  Bat^  a  fleet  craft  which  steamed 
rapidly  down  the  James,  carrying  him  to  Moore- 
head  City.  During  the  afternoon  Sheridan's  cavalry 
was  moving  south  past  Petersburg  and  on  to  Five 
Forks. 


I  78  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

VI. 

I  come  to  the  morning  of  April  3d.  It  was  not 
far  from  three  o'clock  when  there  was  an  explosion 
which  aroused  the  whole  army  from  its  slumbers. 
The  Confederates  had  blown  up  their  ironclads  in 
the  James.  Five  Forks  had  been  fought.  Lee's 
lines  were  broken  and  his  army  in  retreat.  I  was 
early  in  Petersburg.  The  Union  troops,  flushed 
with  victory,  conscious  that  the  last  hours  of  the 
Confederacy  had  arrived,  were  sweeping  through  the 
streets  with  wild  hurrahs.  I  heard  the  whistle  of  the 
locomotive  on  the  military  railroad  leading  to  City 
Point,  and  saw  the  train,  a  single  car,  which  brought 
President  Lincoln  to  the  scene.  The  soldiers  saw 
him,  swung  their  hats,  and  gave  a  yell  of  delight. 
He  lifted  his  hat  and  bowed.  Perhaps  I  was  mis- 
taken, but  the  lines  upon  his  face  seemed  far  deeper 
than  I  had  ever  seen  them  before.  There  was  no 
sign  of  exultation  in  his  demeanor.  He  mounted  a 
horse,  and  under  a  small  cavalry  escort  rode  through 
the  town.  I  did  not  follow  him,  but  put  spurs  to 
my  horse  and  rode  alone  to  Richmond,  over  ground 
which  twenty-four  hours  before  had  been  swept  by 
shot  and  shell,  entering  the  city  while  the  flames 
were  still  rolling  heavenward  from  the  buildings  fired 
by  the  departing  Confederates.  The  fire  was  raging 
on  two  sides  of   the  Spotswood   Hotel  when   I  en- 


BY   CHARLES   CARLTON   COFFIN.  j  75 

tered  it.  The  clerk  was  the  only  person  visible. 
He  bowed  from  habit. 

"  Can  I  have  a  room  ?  "   I  asked. 

"  Take  any  room  you  please.  I  dare  say  you 
won't  occupy  it  long.  You  see  we  are  liable  to  be 
burnt  out  any  moment." 

I  took  up  the  pen  and  wrote  my  name  and  resi- 
dence laro-e — the  first  Yankee  after  the  lone  list  of 
majors,  colonels  and  generals  of  the  "  C.  S.  A." 

The  clerk  looked  at  it  and  smiled.  I  wandered 
at  will  through  the  streets,  beholding  a  woe-begone 
crowd  gazing  mournfully  upon  the  scene  of  deso- 
lation, guarding  the  piles  of  furniture  heaped  upon 
the  grass  springing  fresh  and  green  in  the  Capi- 
tol square — bedding,  tables,  chairs,  looking-glasses, 
crockery,  children,  weeping  women,  groups  of  old 
men,  weak  and  irresolute,  trying  to  guard  the  wreck 
of  their  property  from  the  crowd  of  pilferers  ready 
to  seize  the  plunder.  The  troops  of  General  Dev- 
en's  division  were  doing  provost  guafd  duty,  and 
the   soldiers   shared   their    rations   with   the   women 

and  children. 

VII. 

During  the  following  forenoon  I  was  in  the  Rep- 
resentatives' Chamber  in  the  Capitol,  when  a  plain, 
quick-stepping  gentleman  entered — Admiral  Farra- 
gut,  who  had  hastened  in  from  Norfolk  to  take  a 
look  at  the  situation.     Having  the  latest  account  of 


J  So  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

what  the  army  had  done,  I  gave  him  the  details  of 
the  last  movement  to  Five  Forks.  He  listened  with 
intense  interest,  and  said,  "  Thank  God,  it  is  about 
over." 

In  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  I  was  standing 
on  the  bank  of  the  James,  when  I  saw  a  boat 
pulled  by  twelve  sailors  coming  up  the  river,  and  a 
moment  later  recognized  the  tall  form  of  the  Presi- 
dent, with  Admiral  Porter  by  his  side,  Captain 
Adams  of  the  Navy,  Lieutenant  Clemens  of  the 
Signal  Corps,  and  the  President's  son  Tad. 

Near  at  hand  was  a  lieutenant  directing  the  con- 
struction of  a  bridge  across  the  canal.  The  men 
under  his  charge  were  negroes  who  had  been  im- 
pressed into  service,  and  who  were  eager  to  work 
for  their  rations. 

"  Would  you  like  to  see  the  man  who  made  you 
free  ? "  I  said  to  one  of  the  negroes. 

"  What,  massa  ?" 

"  Would  you  like  to  see  Abraham  Lincoln,  who 
made  you  free  ?  " 

"  Yes,  massa." 

"There  he  is,  that  man  with  the  tall  hat." 

"Be  dat  Massa  Linkinn?" 

"  That  is  President  Lincoln." 

"  Hallelujah !  Hurrah,  boys,  Massa  Linkinn's 
come  !  " 

He  swung  his  old  straw  hat,  slapped  his  hands  and 


I 


BY  CHARLES  CARLTON  COFFIN.  jgj 

jumped  into  the  air.  In  an  instant  the  fifty  negroes 
under  the  lieutenant  were  shouting-  it.  They  ran 
towards  the  landing,  yelling  and  shouting  like  luna- 
tics. I  could  hear  the  cry  running  up  the  streets 
and  lanes,  "  Massa  Linkinn — Massa  Linkinn,"  and 
the  next  moment  there  was  a  crowd  of  sable-hued 
men  and  women  and  children  with  wondering  white 
eyeballs  rushing  pell-mell  towards  the  landing. 

President  Lincoln  recognized  me.  "Can  you  di- 
rect us  to  General  Wirtzel's  head-quarters  ? "  he 
asked. 

I  informed  him  that  I  could  do  so.  The  boat 
came  alongside  the  landing.  Six  marines  in  blue 
caps  and  jackets,  armed  with  carbines,  stepped  on 
shore,  then  the  President  and  little  Tad,  Admiral 
Porter  and  the  rest,  followed  by  six  more  marines. 
I  indicated  to  Captain  Adams  the  direction,  and  the 
procession  under  his  lead  began  its  march  up  the 
street  toward  Capitol  Hill,  the  crowd  increasino- 
every  moment,  the  cry  of  the  delighted  colored 
people  rising  like  the  voice  of  many  waters. 

I  recall  a  negro  woman  who  was  jumping  in  ec- 
stasy, clapping  her  hands,  and  shouting,  "  Glory  ! 
glory  !  glory  !  "     She  could  find  no  other  words. 

Another  had  for  her  refrain,  "  Bress  de  Lord ! 
bress  de  Lord  !  bress  de  Lord  !  " 

The  tropical  exuberance  of  sentiment  characteristic 
of  the  African  race  burst  into  full  flower  upon  the 


jg2  REMINISCENCES   OE  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

instant,  and  no  wonder.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  their 
Saviour,  their  Moses,  who  had  brought  them  through 
the  Red  Sea  and  the  desert  to  the  promised  land  ; 
their  Christ,  their  Redeemer.  We  who  have  always 
had  our  liberty,  we  cool-blooded  Anglo-Americans, 
can  have  no  adequate  realization  of  the  ecstasy  of 
that  moment  on  the  part  of  those  colored  people  of 
Richmond.  They  were  drunk  with  ecstasy.  They 
leaped  into  the  air,  hugged  and  kissed  one  another, 
surged  around  the  little  group  in  a  wild  delirium  of 
joy.  They  would  gladly  have  prostrated  themselves 
before  him — allowed  him  to  walk  on  their  bodies — if 
by  so  doing  they  could  have  expressed  their  joy. 

We  reached  the  base  of  Capitol  Hill.  The  after- 
noon was  warm,  and  the  President  desired  to  rest. 
The  procession  halted.  The  crowd  had  become  so 
dense  that  it  was  difficult  to  advance,  and  a  cavalry- 
man rode  to  General  Shepley,  who  was  placed  in 
command  of  the  city,  for  an  escort.  While  thus 
resting,  an  old  negro,  wearing  a  few  rags,  whose 
white,  crisp  hair  appeared  through  his  crownless 
straw  hat,  lifted  the  hat  from  his  head,  kneeled 
upon  the  ground,  clasped  his  hands,  and  said,  "  May 
de  good  Lord  bress  and  keep  you  safe,  Massa 
President  Linkum." 

Mr.  Lincoln  lifted  his  own  hat  and  bowed  to  the 
old  man.  The  moisture  gathered  in  his  eyes.  He 
brushed  the  tears  away,  and  the  procession  moved 


BY   CHARLES   CARLTON   COFFIN:  183 

on  up  the  hill,  a  half  dozen  cavalrymen,  with  Gen- 
eral Shepley,  opening  the  way. 

The  procession  reached  Wirtzel's  head-quarters — 
the  mansion  from  which  Jefferson  Davis  had  taken 
his  quick  departure  the  previous  Sunday. 

President  Lincoln  wearily  ascended  the  steps,  and 
by  chance  dropped  into  the  very  chair  usually  occu- 
pied by  Mr,  Davis  when  at  his  writing-table. 

Such  was  the  entrance  of  the  Chief  of  the  Repub- 
lic into  the  capital  of  the  late  Confederacy.  There 
was  no  sign  of  exultation,  no  elation  of  spirit,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  a  look  of  unutterable  weariness,  as 
if  his  spirit,  energy  and  animating  force  were  wholly 
exhausted. 

The  gentlemen  who  had  been  deputed  to  meet 
General  Wirtzel  in  the  early  morning  came  in  and 
were  introduced.  They  were  courteously  and  kindly 
received. 

Later  in  the  afternoon  I  saw  President  Lincoln 
riding  through  the  streets,  taking  a  hasty  glance  at 
the  scene  of  desolation  and  woe.  There  was  no 
smile  upon  his  face.  Paler  than  ever  his  counte- 
nance, deeper  than  ever  before  the  lines  upon  his 
forehead.  The  driver  turned  his  horses  towards 
the  landing.  The  visit  to  the  capital  of  the  Con- 
federacy was  ended. 

I  never  saw  him  again.  A  few  weeks  later  the 
bullet   of   the   assassin   accomplished  its  fatal  work, 


184  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ending  the  earthly  labors  of  this  man  of  the  people 
— whose  influence  was  far  wider  than  the  Republic — 
held  in  such  reverence  that  three  years  later  I  found 
myself  drawn  along  the  railway  crossing  the  Apen- 
nines by  the  locomotive  Abraham  Lincoln. 

CHARLES    CARLTON    COFFIN. 


kM:^  f?'      // C>~<^uatyto^!f^ 


IX. 

Frederick  Douglass. 

I  DO  not  know  more  about  Mr.  Lincoln  than  is 
known  by  countless  thousands  of  Americans 
who  have  met  the  man.  But  I  am  quite  willing 
to  give  my  recollections  of  him  and  the  impressions 
made  by  him  upon  my  mind  as  to  his  character. 

My  first  interview  with  him  was  in  the  summer  of 
1863,  soon  after  the  Confederate  States  had  declared 
their  purpose  to  treat  colored  soldiers  as  insurgents, 
and  their  purpose  not  to  treat  any  such  soldiers  as 
prisoners  of  war  subject  to  exchange  like  other  sol- 
diers. My  visit  to  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  reference  to 
this  threat  of  the  Confederate  States.  I  was  at  the 
time  engaged  in  raising  colored  troops,  and  I  desired 
some  assurances  from  President  Lincoln  that  such 
troops  should  be  treated  as  soldiers  of  the  United 
States,  and  when  taken  prisoners  exchanged  like 
other  soldiers  ;  that  when  any  of  them  were  hanged 
or  enslaved  the  President  should  retaliate.  I  was 
introduced  to  Mr.  Lincoln  on  this  occasion  by  Sen- 
ator Pomeroy,  of  Kansas ;  I  met  him  at  the  Execu- 
tive Mansion. 


1 86  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  was  somewhat  troubled  with  the  thought  of 
meeting  one  so  august  and  high  in  authority,  espe- 
cially as  I  had  never  been  in  the  White  House  before, 
and  had  never  spoken  to  a  President  of  the  United 
States  before.  But  my  embarrassment  soon  vanished 
when  I  met  the  face  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  When  I  en- 
tered he  was  seated  in  a  low  chair,  surrounded  by  a 
multitude  of  books  and  papers,  his  feet  and  legs 
were  extended  in  front  of  his  chair.  On  my  approach 
he  slowly  drew  his  feet  in  from  the  different  parts 
of  the  room  into  which  they  had  strayed,  and  he 
began  to  rise,  and  continued  to  rise  until  he  looked 
down  upon  me,  and  extended  his  hand  and  gave  me 
a  welcome.  I  began,  with  some  hesitation,  to  tell 
him  who  I  was  and  what  I  had  been  doing,  but 
he  soon  stopped  me,  saying  in  a  sharp,  cordial 
voice  : 

"  You  need  not  tell  me  who  you  are,  Mr.  Douglass, 
I  know  who  you  are.  Mr.  Sewell  has  told  me  all 
about  you." 

He  then  invited  me  to  take  a  seat  beside  him. 
Not  wishing  to  occupy  his  time  and  attention,  see- 
ing that  he  was  busy,  I  stated  to  him  the  object  of 
my  call  at  once.      I  said  : 

"  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  am  recruiting  colored  troops.  I 
have  assisted  in  fitting  up  two  regiments  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and  am  now  at  work  in  the  same  way  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  have  come  to  say  this  to  you,  sir, 


BV  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS.  jgy 

If  you  wish  to  make  this  branch  of  the  service  suc- 
cessful you  must  do  four  things  : 

"  First — You  must  give  colored  soldiers  the  same 
pay  that  you  give  white  soldiers. 

"  Second — You  must  compel  the  Confederate 
States  to  treat  colored  soldiers,  when  taken  pris- 
oners, as  prisoners  of  war. 

"  Third — When  any  colored  man  or  soldier  per- 
forms brave,  meritorious  exploits  in  the  field,  you 
must  enable  me  to  say  to  those  that  I  recruit  that 
they  will  be  promoted  for  such  service,  precisely  as 
white  men  are  promoted  for  similar  service. 

"  Fourth — In  case  any  colored  soldiers  are  mur- 
dered in  cold  blood  and  taken  prisoners,  you  should 
retaliate  in  kind." 

To  this  little  speech  Mr.  Lincoln  listened  wath 
earnest  attention  and  with  very  apparent  sympathy, 
and  replied  to  each  point  in  his  own  peculiar, 
forcible  way.  First  he  spoke  of  the  opposition  gen- 
erally to  employing  negroes  as  soldiers  at  all,  of  the 
prejudice  against  the  race,  and  of  the  advantage  to 
colored  people  that  would  result  from  their  being 
employed  as  soldiers  in  defense  of  their  country. 
He  regarded  such  an  employment  as  an  experiment, 
and  spoke  of  the  advantage  it  would  be  to  the 
colored  race  if  the  experiment  should  succeed.  He 
said  that  he  had  difficulty  in  getting  colored  men 
into  the  United  States  uniform  ;  that  when  the  pur- 


I  88  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

pose  was  fixed  to  employ  them  as  soldiers,  several 
different  uniforms  were  proposed  for  them,  and 
that  it  was  something  gained  when  it  was  finally 
determined  to  clothe  them  like  other  soldiers. 

Now,  as  to  the  pay,  we  had  to  make  some  conces- 
sion to  prejudice.  There  were  threats  that  if  we 
made  soldiers  of  them  at  all  white  men  would  not 
enlist,  would  not  fight  beside  them.  Besides,  it  was 
not  believed  that  a  negro  could  make  a  good  soldier, 
as  good  a  soldier  as  a  white  man,  and  hence  it  was 
thought  that  he  should  not  have  the  same  pay  as  a 
white  man.      But  said  he, 

"  I  assure  you,  Mr.  Douglass,  that  in  the  end  they 
shall  have  the  same  pay  as  white  soldiers." 

As  to  the  exchange  and  general  treatment  of  col- 
ored soldiers  when  taken  prisoners  of  war,  he  should 
insist  to  their  being  entitled  to  all  privileges  of  such 
prisoners.  Mr.  Lincoln  admitted  the  justice  of  my 
demand  for  the  promotion  of  colored  soldiers  for 
good  conduct  in  the  field,  but  on  the  matter  of  re- 
taliation he  differed  from  me  entirely.  I  shall  never 
forget  the  benignant  expression  of  his  face,  the  tear- 
ful look  of  his  eye  and  the  quiver  in  his  voice,  when 
he  deprecated  a  resort  to  retaliatory  measures. 

"  Once  begun,"  said  he,  "  I  do  not  know  where 
such  a  measure  would  stop." 

He  said  he  could  not  take  men  out  and  kill  them 
in  cold  blood  for  what  was  done  by  others.     If  he 


BY  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS.  1 89 

could  get  hold  of  the  persons  who  were  guilty  of 
killing-  the  colored  prisoners  in  cold  blood,  the  case 
would  be  different,  but  he  could  not  kill  the  innocent 
for  the  guilty. 

Before  leaving  Mr.  Lincoln,  Senator  Pomeroy 
said  : 

"Mr.  President,  Mr.  Stanton  is  going  to  make 
Douglass  Adjutant-General  to  General  Thomas,  and 
is  going  to  send  him  down  the  Mississippi  to  re- 
cruit. 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  in  answer  to  this  : 

"  I  will  sign  any  commission  that  Mr.  Stanton  will 
give  Mr.  Douglass." 

At  this  point  we  parted. 

I  met  Mr.  Lincoln  several  times  after  this  inter- 
view. 

I  was  once  invited  by  him  to  take  tea  with  him  at 
the  Soldiers'  Home.  On  one  occasion,  while  visiting 
him  at  the  White  House,  he  showed  me  a  letter  he 
was  writing  to  Horace  Greeley  in  reply  to  some  of 
Greeley's  criticisms  against  protracting  the  war.  He 
seemed  to  feel  very  keenly  the  reproaches  heaped 
upon  him  for  not  bringing  the  war  to  a  speedy  con- 
clusion ;  said  he  was  charged  with  making  it  an  Abo- 
lition war  instead  of  a  war  for  the  Union,  and  ex- 
pressed his  desire  to  end  the  war  as  soon  as  possible. 
While  I  was  talking  with  him  Governor  Buckingham 
sent  in  his  card,  and  I  was  amused  by  his  telling  the 


I90  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

messenger,  as  well  as  by  the  way  he  expressed  it,  to 
"  tell  Governor  Buckingham  to  wait,  I  want  to  have 
a  long  talk  with  my  friend  Douglass." 

He  used  those  words.  I  said:  "Mr.  Lincoln,  I 
will  retire."  "Oh,  no,  no,  you  shall  not,  1  want 
Governor  Buckingham  to  wait,"  and  he  did  wait  for 
at  least  a  half  hour.  When  he  came  in  I  was  intro- 
duced by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  Governor  Buckingham,  and 
the  Governor  did  not  seem  to  take  it  amiss  at  all 
that  he  had  been  required  to  wait. 

I  was  present  at  the  inauguration  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
the  4th  of  March,  1865.  I  felt  then  that  there  was 
murder  in  the  air,  and  I  kept  close  to  his  carriage  on 
the  way  to  the  Capitol,  for  I  felt  that  I  might  see 
him  fall  that  day.      It  was  a  vague  presentiment. 

At  that  time  the  Confederate  cause  was  on  its  last 
legs,  as  it  were,  and  there  was  deep  feeling.  I  could 
feel  it  in  the  atmosphere  here.  I  did  not  know  ex- 
actly what  it  was,  but  I  just  felt  as  if  he  might  be 
shot  on  his  way  to  the  Capitol.  I  cannot  refer  to 
any  incident,  in  fact,  to  any  expression  that  I  heard, 
it  was  simply  a  presentiment  that  Lincoln  might  fall 
that  day.  I  got  right  in  front  of  the  east  portico  of 
the  Capitol,  listened  to  his  inaugural  address,  and 
witnessed  his  being  sworn  in  by  Chief  Justice  Chase. 
When  he  came  on  the  steps  he  was  accompanied 
by  Vice-President  Johnson.  In  looking  out  in  the 
crowd  he  saw  me  standing  near  by,  and  I  could  see 


BY  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS.  I9I 

he  was  pointing  me  out  to  Andrew  Johnson.  Mr. 
Johnson,  without  knowing  perhaps  that  I  saw  the 
movement,  looked  quite  annoyed  that  his  attention 
should  be  called  in  that  direction.  So  I  got  a  peep 
into  his  soul.  As  soon  as  he  saw  me  looking  at 
him,  suddenly  he  assumed  rather  an  amicable  ex- 
pression of  countenance.  I  felt  that,  whatever  else 
the  man  might  be,  he  was  no  friend  to  my  people. 

I  heard  Mr.  Lincoln  deliver  this  wonderful  ad- 
dress. It  was  very  short  ;  but  he  answered  all  the 
objections  raised  to  his  prolonging  the  war  in  one 
sentence — it  was  a  remarkable  sentence. 

"  Fondly  do  we  hope,  profoundly  do  we  pray, 
that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  shall  soon  pass 
away,  yet  if  God  wills  it  continue  until  all  the 
wealth  piled  up  by  two  hundred  years  of  bondage 
shall  have  been  wasted,  and  each  drop  of  blood 
drawn  by  the  lash  shall  have  been  paid  for  by  one 
drawn  by  the  sword,  we  must  still  say,  as  was  said 
three  thousand  years  ago,  the  judgmients  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  rio-hteous  altoofether." 

For  the  first  time  in  my  life,  and  I  suppose  the 
first  time  in  any  colored  man's  life,  I  attended  the 
reception  of  President  Lincoln  on  the  evening  of 
the  inauguration.  As  I  approached  the  door  I  was 
seized  by  two  policemen  and  forbidden  to  enter.  I 
said  to  them  that  they  were  mistaken  entirely  in 
what  they  were  doing,  that  if  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  that 


1Q2  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  was  at  the  door  he  would  order  my  admission,  and 
I  bolted  in  by  them.  On  the  inside  I  was  taken 
charge  of  by  two  other  policemen,  to  be  conducted 
as  I  supposed  to  the  President,  but  instead  of  that 
they  were  conducting  me  out  the  window  on  a 
plank. 

"  Oh,"  said  I,  "  this  will  not  do,  gentlemen,"  and 
as  a  gentleman  was  passing  in  I  said  to  him,  "Just 
say  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  Fred.  Douglass  is  at  the 
door." 

He  rushed  in  to  President  Lincoln,  and  almost  in 
less  than  a  half  a  minute  I  was  invited  into  the 
East  Room  of  the  White  House.  A  perfect  sea  of 
beauty  and  elegance,  too,  it  was.  The  ladies  were 
in  very  fine  attire,  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  standing 
there.  I  could  not  have  been  more  than  ten  feet 
from  him  when  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  me ;  his  counte- 
nance lighted  up,  and  he  said  in  a  voice  which  was 
heard  all  around  :  ''  Here  comes  my  friend  Doug- 
lass." As  I  approached  him  he  reached  out  his 
hand,  gave  me  a  cordial  shake,  and  said  :  "  Doug- 
lass, I  saw  you  in  the  crowd  to-day  listening  to  my 
inaugural  address.  There  is  no  man's  opinion  that 
I  value  more  than  yours  :  what  do  you  think  of  it?" 
I  said :  "  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  cannot  stop  here  to  talk 
with  you,  as  there  are  thousands  waiting  to  shake 
you  by  the  hand  ; "  but  he  said  again  :  "  What  did 
you  think  of  it?"     I   said:  "Mr.   Lincoln,  it  was  a 


BY  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 


193 


sacred  effort,"  and  then  I  walked  off.  "  I  am  glad 
you  liked  it,"  he  said.  That  was  the  last  time  I  saw 
him  to  speak  with  him. 

In    all    my    interviews    with    Mr.    Lincoln    I    was 
impressed   with   his    entire    freedom    from    popular 
prejudice  against  the  colored  race.      He  was  the  first 
great  man  that  I   talked  with  in  the  United  States 
freely,  who  in  no  single  instance  reminded  me  of  the 
difference  between  himself  and  myself,  of  the  differ- 
ence of  color,  and  I  thought   that  all  the  more  re- 
markable because  he  came  from  a  State  where  there 
were  black   laws.      I  account  partially  for  his   kind- 
ness to   me   because  of   the   similarity  with  which  I 
had  fought  my  way  up,  we  both  starting  at  the  low- 
est round  of   the   ladder.      I   must  say  this  for  Mr. 
Lincoln,  that  whenever  I  met  him  he  was  in  a  very 
serious  mood.     I  heard  of  those  stones  he  used  to 
tell,  but  he  never  told  me  a  story.      I  remember  of 
one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  stories  being  told  me  by  Gen- 
eral  Grant.       I    had    called    on   him,  and   he   said  : 
"  Douglass,  stay  here,  I  want  to  tell  you  about  a  lit- 
tle incident.     When    I    came   to  Washington    first, 
one  of  the  first  things  that  Lincoln  said  to  me  was, 
'  Grant,  have  you  ever  read  the  book  by  Orpheus  C. 
Kerr?'     'Well,  no,  I   never  did,'  said  L      Mr.  Lin- 
coln said  :  'You  ought  to  read  it,  it  is  a  very  inter- 
esting book.      I  have  had  a  good  deal  of  satisfaction 
reading  that  book.     There  is  one  poem  there  that 


13 


194  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

describes  a  meeting  of  the  animals.  The  substance 
of  it  being  that  the  animals  and  a  dragon,  or  some 
dreadful  thing,  was  near  by  and  had  to  be  conquered, 
and  it  was  a  question  as  to  who  would  undertake  the 
job.  By  and  by  a  monkey  stepped  forward  and  pro- 
posed to  do  the  work  up.  The  monkey  said  he 
thought  he  could  do  it  if  he  could  get  an  inch  or 
two  more  put  on  his  tail.  The  assemblage  voted 
him  a  few  inches  more  to  his  tail,  and  he  went  out 
and  tried  his  hand.  He  was  unsuccessful  and  re- 
turned, stating  that  he  wanted  a  few  more  inches  put 
on  his  tail.  The  request  was  granted,  and  he  went 
ao-ain.  His  second  effort  was  a  failure.  He  asked 
that  more  inches  be  put  on  his  tail  and  he  would  try 
a  third  time.'  At  last,"  said  General  Grant,  "it  got 
through  my  head  what  Lincoln  was  aiming  at,  as  ap- 
plying to  my  wanting  more  men,  and  finally  I  said  : 
*  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  don't  want  any  more  inches  put  on 
my  tail.'"  It  was  a  hit  at  McClellan,  and  General 
Grant  told  me  the  story  with  a  good  deal  of  gusto. 
I  eot  the  book  afterward  and  read  the  lines  of  Or- 
pheus  C.  Kerr. 

There  was  one  thing  concerning  Lincoln  that  I 
was  impressed  with,  and  that  was  that  a  statement 
of  his  was  an  argument  more  convincing  than  any 
amount  of  logic.  He  had  a  happy  faculty  of  stating 
a  proposition,  of  stating  it  so  that  it  needed  no  argu- 
ment.    It  was  a  rough  kind  of  reasoning,  but  it  went 


BY  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS.  1 95 

right  to  the  point.  Then,  too,  there  was  another 
feehng  that  I  had  with  reference  to  him,  and  that 
was  that  while  I  feh  in  his  presence  I  was  in  the 
presence  of  a  very  great  man,  as  great  as  the  great- 
est, I  felt  as  though  I  could  go  and  put  my  hand  on 
him  if  I  wanted  to,  to  put  my  hand  on  his  shoulder. 
Of  course  I  did  not  do  it,  but  I  felt  that  I  could.  I 
felt  as  though  I  was  in  the  presence  of  a  big  brother, 
and  that  there  was  safety  in  his  atmosphere. 

It  was  often  said  during  the  war  that  Mrs.  Lincoln 
did  not  sympathize  fully  with  her  husband  in  his 
anti-slavery  feeling,  but  I  never  believed  this  con- 
cerning her,  and  have  good  reason  for  being  con- 
firmed in  my  impression  of  her  by  the  fact  that,  when 
Mr.  Lincoln  died  and  she  was  about  leaving  the 
White  House,  she  selected  his  favorite  walking  cane 
and  said  :  "  I  know  of  no  one  that  would  appreciate 
this  more  than  Fred.  Douglass."  She  sent  it  to  me 
at  Rochester,  and  I  have  it  in  my  house  to-day,  and 
expect  to  keep  it  there  as  long  as  I  live. 

FREDERICK   DOUGLASS. 


X. 

Lawrence  Weldon. 

IN  the  summer  of  1854  I  became  a  citizen  of  De 
Witt  County,  Illinois,  having  emigrated  from 
Ohio  for  the  purpose  of  practicing  law.  At  that  time 
I  knew  something  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  history,  having 
known  of  him  while  he  was  a  member  of  Congress 
a  few  years  before.  I  found  he  had  a  very  strong 
hold  upon  popular  affection,  and  stood  high  in  the 
confidence  of  the  people  of  the  State.  He  was  the 
leader  of  the  bar,  Judge  Logan  having  substan- 
tially retired  from  the  active  practice  ;  and  although 
he  was  but  forty-five,  he  was  alluded  to  in  popular 
parlance  as  "old  Mr.  Lincoln;"  and  in  that  con- 
nection I  recall  an  incident  occurrino-  while  he  was  a 
candidate  for  the  Senate  against  Judge  Douglas  in 
1858.  He  delivered  a  speech  at  Clinton,  and  as  we 
were  riding  in  the  "  inevitable  procession  "  of  Amer- 
ican politics,  the  "small  boy"  of  the  period  said  to 
one  of  his  companions  :  "  There !  there  goes  old  Mr. 
Lincoln!"  This  was  said  in  a  tone  to  be  heard  by 
the  immediate  company,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  asked 
how  long  they  had  been  calling  him  old.     Said  he  : 


198  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

"  Oh,  they  have  been  at  that  trick  many  years. 
They  commenced  it  when  I  was  scarcely  thirty." 

It  seemed  to  amuse  him  ;  he  was  not  old  enough 
to  be  sensitive  about  his  age. 

The  first  time  I  met  him  was  in  September,  1854, 
at  Bloomington  ;  and  I  was  introduced  to  him  by 
Judge  Douglas,  who  was  then  making  a  campaign 
in  defense  of  the  Kansas- Nebraska  bill.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  attending  court,  and  called  to  see  the 
Judge.  They  talked  very  pleasantly  about  old  times 
and  things,  and  during  the  conversation  the  Judge 
broadened  the  hospitalities  of  the  occasion  by  asking 
him  to  drink  something.  Mr.  Lincoln  declined  very 
politely,  when  the  Judge  said:  "Why,  do  you  be- 
long to  the  temperance  society?"     He  said  : 

"  I  do  not  in  theory,  but  I  do  in  fact,  belong  to 
the  temperance  society,  in  this,  to  wit,  that  I  do  not 
drink  anything,  and  have  not  done  so  for  a  very 
many  years." 

Shortly  after  he  retired,  Mr.  J.  W.  Fell,  then  and 
now  a  leading  citizen  of  Illinois,  came  into  the 
room,  with  a  proposition  that  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr. 
Douglas  have  a  discussion,  remarking  that  there 
were  a  great  many  people  in  the  city,  that  the  ques- 
tion was  of  great  public  importance,  and  that  it 
would  afford  the  crowd  the  luxury  of  listening  to  the 
acknowledged  champions  of  both  sides.  As  soon  as 
the  proposition  was  made  it  could  be  seen  that  the 


BY  LA  WRENCE    IVELDON.  1 99 

Judge  was  irritated.  He  inquired  of  Mr.  Fell,  with 
some  majesty  of  manner:  "Whom  does  Mr.  Lin- 
coln represent  in  this  campaign — is  he  an  Abolition- 
ist or  an  Old  Line  Whig  ?  " 

Mr.  Fell  replied  that  he  was  an  Old  Line  Whig. 

"  Yes,"  said  Douglas,  "  I  am  now  in  the  region 
of  the  Old  Line  Whig.  When  I  am  in  Northern 
Illinois  I  am  assailed  by  an  Abolitionist,  when  I  get 
to  the  center  I  am  attacked  by  an  Old  Line  Whig, 
and  when  I  go  to  Southern  Illinois  I  am  beset  by  an 
Anti-Nebraska  Democrat.  I  can't  hold  the  Whig 
responsible  for  anything  the  Abolitionist  says,  and 
can't  hold  the  Anti-Nebraska  Democrat  responsible 
for  the  positions  of  either.  It  looks  to  me  like  dog- 
ging a  man  all  over  the  State.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  wants 
to  make  a  speech  he  had  better  get  a  crowd  of  his 
own  ;  for  I  most  respectfully  decline  to  hold  a  dis- 
cussion with  him." 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  challenge 
except  perhaps  to  say  he  would  discuss  the  question 
with  Judge  Douglas.  He  was  not  aggressive  in  the 
defense  of  his  doctrines  or  enunciation  of  his  opin- 
ions, but  he  was  brave  and  fearless  in  the  protection 
of  what  he  believed  to  be  the  right.  The  impression 
he  made  when  I  was  introduced  was  as  to  his  unaf- 
fected and  sincere  manner,  and  the  precise,  cautious, 
and  accurate  mode  in  which  he  stated  his  thoughts 
even  when  talking  about  commonplace  things. 


200  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  1854  and  down  to  the  commencement  of  the 
war  the  circuit  practice  in  IlHnois  was  still  in  vogue, 
and  the  itinerant  lawyer  was  as  sure  to  come  as  the 
trees  to  bud  or  the  leaves  to  fall.  In  and  among 
these  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  star  ;  he  stood  above  and 
beyond  them  all.  He  traveled  the  circuit  attending 
the  courts  of  Judge  David  Davis's  district,  extend- 
ing from  the  center  to  the  eastern  boundary  of  the 
State,  until  he  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency. 
He  liked  the  atmosphere  of  a  court-house,  and 
seemed  to  be  contented  and  happy  when  Judge 
Davis  was  on  the  bench  and  he  had  before  him  the 
"twelve  good  and  lawful  men"  who  had  been  called 
from  the  body  of  the  county  to  "well  and  truly  try 
the  issue."  In  every  county  in  which  he  practiced 
he  was  among  his  friends  and  acquaintances  ;  he 
usually  knew  the  most,  and  always  the  leading  men 
on  the  jury.  He  was  not  what  might  be  called  an 
industrious  lawyer,  and  when  his  adversary  presented 
a  reasonably  good  affidavit  for  a  continuance,  he  was 
willingf  that  the  case  should  ^o  over  until  the  next 
term.  He  was  particularly  kind  to  young  lawyers, 
and  I  remember  with  what  confidence  I  always  went 
to  him,  because  I  was  certain  that  he  knew  all  about 
the  matter,  and  would  most  cheerfully  tell  me.  I 
can  see  him  now  through  the  decaying  memories  of 
thirty  years,  standing  in  the  corner  of  the  old  court- 
room, and  as  I  approached  him  with  a  paper  I  did 
not  understand,  he  said: 


BY  LAWRENCE   WELDON.  20I 

"  Wait  until  I  fix  this  plug  for  my  '  gallis,'  and  I 
will  pitch  into  that  like  a  dog  at  a  root." 

While  speaking,  he  was  busily  engaged  in  trying 
to  connect  his  suspender  with  his  pants  by  making  a 
"plug"  perform  the  function  of  a  button.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln used  old-fashioned  words,  and  never  failed  to 
use  them  if  they  could  be  sustained  as  proper.  He 
was  probably  taught  to  say  "gallows,"  and  he  never 
adopted  the  modern  "suspender." 

In  the  convulsions  of  nations,  how  rapidly  history 
makes  itself  !  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  attorney  of  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company,  to  assist  the 
local  counsel  in  the  different  counties  of  the  circuit, 
and  in  De  Witt  County,  in  connection  with  the  Hon. 
C.  H,  Moore,  attended  to  the  litigation  of  the  com- 
pany. In  '58  or  '59  he  appeared  in  a  case  which 
they  did  not  want  to  try  at  that  term,  and  Mr.  Lin- 
coln remarked  to  the  court : 

"We  are  not  ready  for  trial." 

Judge  Davis  said :  "  Why  is  not  the  company 
ready  to  go  to  trial  ?" 

Mr.  Lincoln  replied :  "  We  are  embarrassed  by 
the  absence  or  rather  want  of  information  from.  Cap- 
tain McClellan." 

The  Judge  said :  "  Who  is  Captain  McClellan, 
and  why  is  he  not  here  ?  " 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  :  "  All  I  know  of  him  is  that  he 
is  the  engineer  of  the  railroad,  and  why  he  is  not 
here  this  deponent  saith  not." 


202  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  consequence  of  the  absence  of  Captain  McClel- 
lan  the  case  was  continued.  Lincoln  and  McClellan 
had  perhaps  never  met  up  to  that  time,  and  the 
most  they  knew  of  each  other  was  that  one  was  the 
attorney  and  the  other  the  engineer  of  the  IlHnois 
Central  Railroad  Company.  In  less  than  two  years 
from  that  time  the  fame  of  both  had  spread  as  broad 
as  civilization,  and  each  held  in  his  grasp  the  fate  of 
a  nation.  The  lawyer  was  directing  councils  and 
cabinets,  and  the  engineer,  in  subordination  to  the 
lawyer  as  commander-in-chief,  was  directing  armies 
greater  and  grander  than  the  combined  forces  of 
Wellington  and  Napoleon  at  Waterloo. 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  make  a  specialty  of  criminal 
cases,  but  was  engaged  frequently  in  them.  He 
could  not  be  called  a  great  lawyer,  measured  by  the 
extent  of  his  acquirement  of  legal  knowledge  ;  he 
was  not  an  encyclopedia  of  cases,  but  in  the  text- 
books of  the  profession  and  in  the  clear  perception 
of  legal  principles,  with  natural  capacity  to  apply 
them,  he  had  great  ability.  He  was  not  a  case  law- 
yer, but  a  lawyer  who  dealt  in  the  deep  philosophy 
of  the  law.  He  always  knew  the  cases  which  might 
be  quoted  as  absolute  authority,  but  beyond  that  he 
contented  himself  in  the  application  and  discussion 
of  general  principles.  In  the  trial  of  a  case  he 
moved  cautiously,  and  never  examined,  or  cross- 
examined   a  witness  to   the   detriment   of   his    side. 


BY  LA  WRENCE   WELDON.  203 

If  the  witness  told  the  truth  he  was  safe  from  his 
attacks,  but  woe  betide  the  unlucky  and  dishonest 
individual  who  suppressed  the  truth,  or  colored  It 
against  Mr.  Lincoln's  side.  His  speeches  to  the 
jury  were  very  effective  specimens  of  forensic  ora- 
tory. He  talked  the  vocabulary  of  the  people,  and 
the  jury  understood  every  point  he  made  and  every 
thought  he  uttered.  I  never  saw  him  when  I  thought 
he  was  trying  to  make  a  display  for  mere  display; 
but  his  imagination  was  simple  and  pure  in  the 
richest  gems  of  true  eloquence.  He  constructed 
short  sentences  of  small  words,  and  never  wearied 
the  mind  of  the  jury  by  mazes  of  elaboration. 

The  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  having  been  passed  in 
May,  1854,  great  political  excitement  prevailed  in 
Illinois  because  of  the  connection  of  Senator  Doug- 
las with  that  measure.  Mr.  Douglas  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  been  political  antagonists  as  Whigs 
and  Democrats,  and  when  the  Republican  Party 
was  formed  in  1854  that  antagonism  continued,  Mr. 
Douglas  adhering  to  the  Democratic  Party  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  becoming  the  leader  of  the  Republican 
Party  in  Illinois.  In  1858,  during  the  campaign 
preceding  the  election  of  Senator,  Mr.  Lincoln  made 
a  speech  at  Springfield,  on  the  17th  of  June,  in  which 
he  charged  a  purpose  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Douglas, 
Mr.  Buchanan,  and  Judge  Taney  to  nationalize 
slavery.     That  speech  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 


204 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


that  he  ever  delivered,  and  the  one  in  which  he 
used  the  expression,  "  a  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand."  Mr.  Douglas  came  to  Illinois  upon 
the  adjournment  of  the  Senate  and  made  a  speech  in 
Chicago,  in  which  he  did  not  take  occasion  to  con- 
tradict  the  charge  made  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  Springfield 
speech.  Mr.  Lincoln  then  made  another  speech  at 
Springfield,  in  which  he  noticed  the  fact  that  he 
made  the  charge  referred  to  on  the  17th  of  June; 
that  Mr.  Douglas  had  since  then  made  a  speech 
in  Chicago,  and  did  not  deny  it  ;  and,  said  he,  in  his 
second  Springfield  speech:  "I  am  entitled  to  what 
the  lawyers  call  a  default,  and  I  here  take  the  default 
on  him  on  that  charge,  he  having  refused  and  failed 
to  answer." 

Some  time  in  the  latter  part  of  July  Mr,  Douglas 
began  his  regular  campaign  in  De  Witt,  that  being  a 
strong  Buchanan  county,  Colonel  Thomas  Snell 
having  organized  the  Danite  party  there  in  opposi- 
tion to  Mr.  Douglas.  We  wrote  Mr.  Lincoln  that, 
inasmuch  as  Mr.  Douglas  was  to  begin  his  regular 
campaign  there,  he  had  better  come  and  hear  him  ; 
and  on  the  morning  of  the  day  the  meeting  was  held 
Mr.  Lincoln  came  to  Clinton.  There  was  an  immense 
crowd  for  a  country  town,  and  the  people  were  very 
much  excited  upon  the  subject  of  politics. 

On  the  way  to  the  grove,  Mr.  Lincoln  said  :  "I 
have   challenged    Judge   Douglas    for  a  discussion ; 


B  Y  LA  IVRENCE   WELDO.V.  205 

what  do  you  think  of  it  ?  "  I  said  :  "  The  question 
is  already  settled  ;  but  I  approve  your  judgment  in 
whatever  you  may  do."  Mr.  Douglas  spoke  to  an 
immense  audience,  and  made  one  of  the  most  forcible 
political  speeches  I  ever  heard.  He  spoke  over  three 
hours,  in  the  course  of  which  he  took  occasion  to 
reply  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  Springfield  speech,  with  ref- 
erence to  the  "  default "  which  he  said  Mr.  Lincoln 
in  his  second  speech  had  sought  to  make  against 
him.  As  he  progressed  in  his  argument  he  became 
very  personal,  and  I  said  to  Mr.  Lincoln  :  "  Do  you 
suppose  Douglas  knows  you  are  here  ? " 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  I  don't  know  whether  he  does 
or  not,  he  has  not  looked  around  in  this  direction  ; 
but  I  reckon  the  boys  have  told  him  I  am  here." 

When  Judge  Douglas  finished  there  was  a  great 
shout  for  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  stepped  on  the  seat  very 
much  excited,  and  said  : 

"This  is  Judge  Douglas's  meeting.  I  have  no 
right  and  therefore  no  disposition  to  interfere,  but 
if  you  ladies  and  gentlemen  desire  to  hear  what  I 
have  to  say  on  these  questions,  and  will  meet  me  to- 
night at  the  Court-house  yard,  /  will  try  and  answer 
the  crentleman." 

Mr.  Douglas  was  in  the  act  of  putting  on  his 
cravat,  and  turned  in  the  direction  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 
Both  became  poised  in  a  tableau  of  majestic  power. 
The  scene  exhibited  a  meeting  of  giants — a  contest 


206  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  great  men — and  the  situation  was  dramatic  in  the 
extreme. 

Lincoln  made  a  speech  that  night  which  in  volume 
and  force  did  not  equal  the  speech  of  Judge  Doug- 
las ;  but  for  sound  and  cogent  argument  it  was 
superior.  Negro  equality  was  then  the  bugbear  of 
politics,  and  the  Republican  Party  was  defending  it- 
self against  these  slanderous  charges  of  the  Democ- 
racy.    Mr.  Lincoln  said  in  his  speech  : 

"Judge  Douglas  charges  me  with  being  in  favor 
of  negro  equality,  and  to  the  extent  that  he  charges  I 
am  not  guilty.  /  am  guilty  of  hating  servitude  and 
loving  freedom  ;  and  while  I  would  not  carry  the 
equality  of  the  races  to  the  extent  charged  by  my  ad- 
versary, I  am  happy  to  confess  before  you  that  in 
some  things  the  black  man  is  the  equal  of  the  white 
man.  In  the  right  to  eat  the  bread  his  own  hands 
have  earned  he  is  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas  or 
any  other  living  man." 

When  he  spoke  the  last  sentence  he  had  stretched 
himself  to  his  full  height,  and  as  he  reached  his  hands 
toward  the  stars  of  that  still  night,  then  and  there 
fell  from  his  lips  one  of  the  grandest  expressions  of 
American  statesmanship. 

After  the  meeting  his  friends  congratulated  him 
especially  on  the  beauty  of  the  thought  in  the  last 
sentence  of  the  quotation. 

He  said  :  "  Do  you  think  that  is  fine?"  and  when 


BY  LA  WRENCE   WELD  ON.  20/ 

assured  that  it  was,  he  laughingly  said  :  "  If  you  think 
so,  I  will  get  that  off  again."  Mr.  Douglas,  having 
received  a  challenge  from  Mr.  Lincoln,  replied  to  him 
in  a  few  days,  and  the  memorable  discussion  was  the 
result. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  resources  as  a  story-teller  were  in- 
exhaustible, and  no  condition  could  arise  in  a  case 
beyond  his  capacity  to  furnish  an  illustration  with  an 
appropriate  anecdote.  Judge  Davis  was  always  will- 
ing that  he  should  tell  a  story  in  court,  even  if  the 
gravity  of  the  situation  was  for  the  time  being  sus- 
pended, and  no  one  enjoyed  the  mirth  of  the  occasion 
more  than  his  honor  on  the  bench  ;  but  while  that 
was  true,  the  distinguished  barrister  was  always  def- 
erential and  respectful  toward  the  court,  and  never 
forgot  the  professional  amenities  of  the  bar. 

In  the  debate  with  Judge  Douglas  "he  builded 
better  than  he  knew."  He  was  preparing,  as  he 
thought,  a  stepping-stone  to  the  Senate,  but  what 
was  rejected  then  became  the  corner-stone  in  that 
fortune  that  raised  him  to  the  Presidency.  When  he 
was  invited  to  deliver  a  speech  at  Cooper  Institute, 
in  February,  i860,  he  hesitated  about  accepting. 
He  said  to  his  friends  :  "  I  don't  know  whether  I 
shall  be  adequate  to  the  situation  ;  I  have  never  ap- 
peared before  such  an  audience  as  may  possibly 
assemble  to  hear  me.  I  am  appalled  by  the  magni- 
tude of  the  undertaking."     He  was,  however,  relieved 


2o8  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  his  fear  before  he  went  by  having,  as  he  said, 
formulated  a  Hne  of  thought  which  would  prevent  a 
failure. 

In  May,  i860,  a  State  Convention  was  held  at 
Decatur  to  appoint  delegates  to  Chicago.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  there,  and  at  that  convention  the  rail  move- 
ment was  inaugurated  by  Governor  Oglesby.  He 
had  formerly  lived  in  that  county,  and  had  worked 
on  a  farm  with  Mr.  John  Hanks,  who  was  still  living, 
and  it  occurred  to  the  Governor,  in  conversation  with 
Mr.  Hanks,  that  if  they  could  get  some  of  the  rails 
that  Lincoln  and  Hanks  split  it  would  be  a  good 
thing  for  the  campaign  ;  and  so  on  the  day  of  the 
convention  Oglesby  arranged  that  just  at  the  close 
of  the  business  of  the  convention  Mr.  Hanks  should 
march  in  with  one  of  these  rails  on  his  shoulder, 
which  he  did  ;  and  as  Mr.  Lincoln  rose  to  speak,  his 
attention  was  called  to  the  rail.      He  said  : 

"  Fellow-citizens,  it  is  true  that  many,  many  years 
ago  John  Hanks  and  I  made  rails  down  on  the 
Sangamon.  We  made  good,  big,  honest  rails,  but 
whether  that  is  one  of  the  rails,  I  am  not,  at  this  dis- 
tant period  of  time,  able  to  say." 

That  Inaugurated  the  rail  movement.  He  closed 
his  reference  to  the  rails  with  a  eulogy  on  free  labor 
embracing  the  finest  thought  of  his  theory  upon  that 
subject.  At  that  convention  the  question  was  asked 
him  whether  he  would  attend  the  Chicago  Conven- 


BY  LA  WRENCE   WELDON. 


209 


tlon,  and  he  replied  :  "  I  am  a  little  too  much  of  a 
candidate  to  go,  and  not  quite  enough  of  a  candidate 
to  stay  away  ;  but  upon  the  whole  I  believe  I  will 
not  go." 

Mr.  Lincoln  took  no  public  part  in  the  campaign 
of  i860.  He  attended  one  political  meeting,  but  de- 
clined to  speak.  On  the  day  appointed  by  law  the 
Republican  electors  met  at  Springfield  and  were 
entertained  at  dinner  by  Mr.  J.  C.  Conkling,  the 
elector  for  that  district.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  there  as 
one  of  the  guests,  and  talked  freely  but  sadly  as  to 
the  condition  of  things  incident  to  his  election.  Gov- 
ernor Yates,  who  had  been  elected  Governor,  was  of 
the  party,  and  expressed  to  him  the  necessity  of  be- 
ing firm  and  determined.  He  replied  that  he  hoped 
he  would  be  adequate  to  the  responsibility  of  the 
situation  ;  and  that  in  his  hands,  as  President,  the 
Republic  of  Washington  would  not  perish.  How 
much  work  he  did,  at  Springfield,  in  the  preparation 
of  his  inaugural  was  not  known  by  his  most  intimate 
friends.  He  may  have  consulted  some  of  the  mem- 
bers of  his  Cabinet  who  visited  him  before  he  left  for 
Washington,  but  beyond  them  he  kept  his  own  coun- 
sel. That  fact  illustrates  one  of  the  distinguishing 
features  of  his  character.  As  to  the  ordinary  affairs 
of  life  he  was  indifferent — he  listened  to  anybody;  but 
when  the  highest  and  most  important  functions  of 

duty  were  called  into  requisition  he  was  one  of  the 

14 


2IO  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

most  self-reliant  men  of  history.  As  President  of  the 
United  States  he  was  indifferent  as  to  who  was  Min- 
ister to  the  Court  of  St.  James  or  Postmaster  at  New 
York — councils  and  cabinets  might  decide  such 
questions  ;  but  when  the  question  arose  whether  lib- 
erty was  to  be  given  to  all,  in  the  solitude  of  his  un- 
measured genius  the  problem  was  solved.  He  was 
advised  long  before  i860,  by  some  of  his  more  inti- 
mate friends,  that  his  positions  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  and  human  rights  would  be  prejudicial  to  his 
party  and  to  himself  personally.  He  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  such  admonitions.  The  question  with  him 
was  whether  the  thing  was  right,  and  not  what  his 
friends  may  have  thought  about  the  expediency  of  it. 

In  almost  all  the  situations  of  life,  public  or  pri- 
vate, Mr.  Lincoln  had  some  anecdote  to  illustrate 
the  situation. 

During  the  war  there  was  a  contest  between  the 
military  and  civil  authorities  as  to  the  policy  of 
bringing  out  cotton  from  a  certain  insurrectionary 
district.  The  civil  authorities  having  granted  per- 
mission to  do  so  were  in  favor  of  bringing  it  out, 
and  the  military  authorities  in  carrying  out  their 
belligerent  operations  were  opposed  to  it.  In  that 
condition  of  things  I  was  requested  by  some  gentle- 
men in  Washington  that  I  find  out  from  him  what 
would  be  the  probable  result  of  the  contest  then  ex- 
isting between  the  civil  and  military  authorities  as 


BY  LA  WRENCE   WELDON.  2  I  I 


to  the  policy  of  bringing  cotton  out  of  the  seceded 
States.  The  permits  that  were  issued  by  the  Treas- 
ury Department  were  nulHfied  by  the  miHtary  au- 
thorities, and  the  matter  was  brought  before  the 
President  as  to  what  should  be  done.  After  hav- 
ing talked  for  a  considerable  time  with  him  about 
other  matters,  I  referred  to  the  subject,  and  said 
that  a  number  of  gentlemen  who  were  then  in  the 
city  had  requested  me  to  ask  him  what  would  proba- 
bly be  the  result  of  the  contest.  As  soon  as  I  made 
the  inquiry  a  pleasant  smile  came  over  his  face,  the 
memory  of  other  days  was  with  him,  and  he  said : 
"  By  the  way,  what  has  become  of  our  friend, 
Robert  Lewis?"  Mr.  Lewis  had  for  a  number  of 
years  been  clerk  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  De  Witt 
County,  and  was  a  great  personal  friend  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's. He  was  a  great  wit,  and  was  very  much  en- 
joyed in  his  association  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  remarked 
to  the  President  that  Mr.  Lewis  was  still  in  his  old 
home,  and  he  then  said  :  "  Do  you  remember  a  story 
that  Bob  used  to  tell  us  about  his  going  to  Missouri 
to  look  up  some  Mormon  lands  that  belong  to  his 
father?"  I  said:  "Mr.  President,  I  have  forgotten 
the  details  of  that  story,  and  I  wish  you  would  tell 
it."  He  then  said  that  when  Robert  became  of  age 
he  found  among  the  papers  of  his  father's  a  number 
of  warrants  and  patents  for  lands  in  North-east  Mis- 
souri, and  he  concluded   the  best  thing  he  could  do 


2  12  REMINISCENCES   OF  A  B  I?  AH  AM  LINCOLN 

was  to  go  to  Missouri  and  investigate  the  condition 
of  things.  It  being  before  the  days  of  railroads,  he 
started  on  horseback  with  a  pair  of  old-fashioned 
saddle-bags.  When  he  arrived  where  he  supposed 
his  land  was  situated,  he  stopped,  hitched  his  horse, 
and  went  into  a  cabin  standing  close  by  the  road- 
side. He  found  the  proprietor,  a  lean,  lanky,  leath- 
ery-looking man,  engaged  in  the  pioneer  business  of 
making  bullets  preparatory  to  a  hunt.  Mr.  Lewis 
observed,  on  entering,  a  rifle  suspended  on  a  couple 
of  buck  horns  above  the  fire.  He  said  to  the  man  : 
"I  am  looking  up  some  lands  that  I  think  belong  to 
my  father,"  and  inquired  of  the  man  in  what  section 
he  lived.  Without  having  ascertained  the  section, 
Mr.  Lewis  proceeded  to  exhibit  his  title  papers  in 
evidence,  and  having  established  a  good  title  as  he 
thought,  said  to  the  man  :  "  Now,  that  is  my  title, 
what  is  yours?"  The  pioneer,  who  had  by  this 
time  become  somewhat  interested  in  the  proceed- 
ing, pointed  his  long  finger  toward  the  rifle,  and 
said:  "Young  man,  do  you  see  that  gun?"  Mr. 
Lewis  frankly  admitted  that  he  did.  "  Well,"  said 
he,  "  that  is  my  title,  and  if  you  don't  get  out  of 
here  pretty  damned  quick  3'ou  will  feel  the  force  of 
it."  Mr.  Lewis  very  hurriedly  put  his  title  papers 
in  his  saddle-bags,  mounted  his  pony,  and  galloped 
down  the  road,  and,  as  Bob  says,  the  old  pioneer 
snapped  his  gun  twice  at  him  before  he  could  turn 


BY  LA  WRENCE    WELDON.  2  1 3 

the  corner.  Lewis  said  that  he  had  never  been  back 
to  disturb  that  man's  title  since.  "Now,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  the  "  military  authorities  have  the  same 
title  agfainst  the  civil  authorities  that  closed  out 
Bob's  Mormon  title  in  Missouri.  You  may  judge 
what  may  be  the  result  in  this  case." 

When  I  returned  to  the  hotel  I  told  the  story  to 
the  anxious  cotton  speculators,  and  they  all  under- 
stood what  would  be  the  policy  of  the  administra- 
tion as  well  as  if  a  proclamation  had  been  issued. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  in  the  habit  of  injecting  his 
stories  into  an  occasion,  but  told  them  as  they  were 
suggested  by  the  incident  of  the  conversation  ;  and 
the  happy  faculty  of  always  being  ready  with  one 
assisted  and  relieved  him  in  the  discharge  of  duties, 
from  the  humblest  walks  of  life  to  the  complex 
and  complicated  responsibilities  of  President  of  the 
United  States. 

With  all  the  jollity  of  his  every-day  life,  in  all  but 
the  surface  indications  of  his  character,  he  was  sad 
and  serious.  The  poem  which  he  so  often  quoted, 
"Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?" 
was  a  reflex  in  poetic  form  of  the  deep  melancholy 
of  his  soul.  I  have  heard  him,  as  he  sat  by  the  de- 
caying embers  of  an  old-fashioned  fire-place,  when 
the  day's  merriment  and  business  were  over  and  the 
night's  stillness  had  assumed  dominion,  quote  at 
length  his  favorite  poem. 


214  REMINISCEXCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Another  story  is  told  illustrative  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
ability  to  relieve  the  embarrassment  of  his  situation 
as  President  by  a  master-stroke  of  wit.  In  1862  the 
j^eople  of  New  York  City  were  apprehensive  of  a 
bombardment  by  some  of  the  Confederate  cruisers  ; 
public  meetings  were  held  to  express  the  gravity  of 
the  situation,  and  to  induce  the  Government  to  do 
something  by  way  of  permanently  protecting  the 
city.  In  consummation  of  that  purpose  a  delegation 
of  fifty  gentlemen,  representing  in  their  own  right 
$100,000,000,  was  selected  to  visit  Washington  and 
have  an  interview  with  the  President,  and  induce 
him  to  detail  a  gun-boat  to  protect  the  city.  The 
committee  requested  a  gentleman  then  staying  at 
Washington  to  arrano-e  with  the  President  a  time 
when  he  could  see  them.  Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  to 
be  much  puzzled  what  to  say  or  do,  and  remarked 
to  the  crentleman  who  was  arrano-ins^  as  to  the  inter- 
view  : 

"  I  have  no  gun-boats  or  ships  of  war  that  can 
be  spared  from  active  service  ;  but,  inasmuch  as  they 
have  come  to  see  me,  I  shall  have  to  see  them  and 
get  along  as  best  I  can." 

The  committee  called  at  the  appointed  time,  and 
were  introduced  as  gentlemen  "representing  $100,- 
000,000  in  their  own  right."  The  chairman  of  the 
delegation  made  a  very  earnest  appeal  to  the  Presi- 
dent for  protection,  and  remarked  that  they  repre- 


B  Y  LA  WRENCE   WELDON.  2  I  5 

sented  the  wealth  of  the  city — "one  hundred  mil- 
lions in  their  own  ricfht."  Mr.  Lincoln  heard  them 
attentively,  evidently  impressed  with  the  "  hundred 
millions,"  and  replied  as  follows  : 

"  Gentlemen,  I  am,  by  the  Constitution,  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States, 
and,  as  a  matter  of  law,  I  can  order  anything  done 
that  is  practicable  to  be  done  ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
I  am  not  in  command  of  the  gun-boats  or  ships  of 
war — as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  do  not  know  exactly  where 
they  are,  but  presume  they  are  actively  engaged. 
It  is  impossible  for  me,  in  the  condition  of  things,  to 
furnish  you  a  gun-boat.  The  credit  of  the  Govern- 
ment is  at  a  very  low  ebb.  Greenbacks  are  not 
worth  more  than  40  or  50  cents  on  the  dollar,  and  in 
this  condition  of  things,  if  I  was  worth  half  as  much 
as  you  gentlemen  are  represented  to  be,  and  as  badly 
frightened  as  you  seem  to  be,  I  would  build  a  gun- 
boat and  give  it  to  the  Government." 

The  gentleman  who  accompanied  the  delegation 
says  he  never  saw  one  hundred  millions  sink  to  such 
insignificant  proportions  as  it  did  when  that  commit- 
tee recrossed  the  threshold  of  the  White  House, 
sadder  but  wiser  men.  They  had  learned  that  money 
as  well  as  muscle  was  a  factor  of  war. 

LAWRENCE   WELDON. 


Va^Av\     \^eA^\x\\     \c' 


<TO\-^ 


XL 

Benjamin  Perley  Poore. 

THE  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  President 
was  very  acceptable  to  the  older  Washington 
correspondents.  They  remembered  him  well  in  the 
XXXth  Congress,  when,  as  the  Representative  from 
the  Sangamon  district,  he  was  the  only  Whig  in 
the  Illinois  delegation,  then  but  seven  in  number. 
In  the  drawing  for  seats  his  name  had  been  one  of 
the  last  called,  and  he  had  been  obliged  to  content 
himself  with  a  desk  in  the  very  outer  row,  about 
midway  on  the  Speaker's  left  hand,  where  he  had  on 
one  side  of  him  Harmon  S.  Conger,  of  New  York, 
and  on  the  other  John  Gayle,  of  Alabama.  There 
he  used  to  sit  patiently  listening  to  the  eloquence  of 
John  Quincy  Adams,  Robert  Toombs,  David  M. 
Barringer,  Andrew  Johnson,  and  others  whose  ge- 
nius and  learning  adorned  the  old  Hall,  and  to  the 
verbose  platitudes  of  those  less  gifted.  His  own 
voice  was  never  heard  unless  when  he  voted  "aye" 
or  "  nay." 

During  the  Christmas  holidays  Mr.  Lincoln  found 
his  way  into  the  small  room  used  as  the  post-office 


2l8  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  the  House,  where  a  few  jovial  raconteurs  used  to 
meet  almost  every  morning,  after  the  mail  had  been 
distributed  into  the  members'  boxes,  to  exchange 
such  new  stories  as  any  of  them  might  have  ac- 
quired since  they  had  last  met.  After  modestly 
standing  at  the  door  for  several  days,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  "  reminded  "  of  a  story,  and  by  New  Year's  he 
was  recognized  as  the  champion  story-teller  of  the 
Capitol.  His  favorite  seat  was  at  the  left  of  the 
open  fire-place,  tilted  back  In  his  chair,  with  his  long 
legs  reaching  over  to  the  chimney  jamb.  He  never 
told  a  story  twice,  but  appeared  to  have  an  endless 
repertoire  of  them,  always  ready,  like  the  successive 
charges  in  a  magazine  gun,  and  always  pertinently 
adapted  to  some  passing  event. 

It  was  refreshing  to  us  correspondents,  compelled 
as  we  were  to  listen  to  so  much  that  was  prosy  and 
tedious,  to  hear  this  bright  specimen  of  Western 
genius  tell  his  inimitable  stories,  especially  his  rem- 
iniscences of  the  Black  Hawk  War,  in  which  he 
had  commanded  a  company,  which  was  mustered 
into  the  United  States  service  by  Jefferson  Davis, 
then  second  lieutenant  of  dragoons. 

I  remember  his  narrating  his  first  experience  in 
drilling  his  company.  He  was  marching  with  a  front 
of  over  twenty  men  across  a  field,  when  he  desired 
to  pass  through  a  gateway  into  the  next  inclosure. 

"  I  could  not  for  the  life  of  me,"  said  he,  "  remem- 


BY  BENJAMIN  PERLEY  POORE.  219 

ber  the  proper  word  of  command  for  getting  my 
company  endwise  so  that  it  could  get  through  the 
gate,  so  as  we  came  near  the  gate  I  shouted  :  '  This 
company  is  dismissed  for  two  minutes,  when  it  will 
fall  in  again  on  the  other  side  of  the  gate  ! '  " 

When  the  laugh  which  the  description  of  these 
novel  tactics  caused  had  subsided,  Mr.  Lincoln 
added : 

"  And  I  sometimes  think  here,  that  gentlemen  in 
yonder  who  get  into  a  tight  place  in  debate,  would 
like  to  dismiss  the  House  until  the  next  day  and 
then  take  a  fair  start." 

Mr.  Lincoln  used  to  narrate  his  exploits  in  wrest- 
ling during  this  campaign,  when  he  was  regarded  as 
the  champion  of  Northern  Illinois.  One  day  the 
champion  of  the  Southern  companies  in  the  expedi- 
tion challenged  him. 

"  He  was  at  least  two  inches  taller  than  I  was," 
said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  and  somewhat  heavier,  but  I 
reckoned  that  I  was  the  most  wiry,  and  soon  after  I 
had  tackled  him  I  gave  him  a  hug,  lifted  him  off  the 
ground,  and  threw  him  flat  on  his  back.  That  set- 
tled his  hash." 

Soon  after  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1848  was 
opened,  Alfred  Iverson,  a  Democratic  Representative 
from  Georgia,  made  a  political  speech,  in  which  he  ac- 
cused the  Whigs  of  having  deserted  their  financial  and 
tariff  principles,  and  of  having  "  taken  shelter  under 


2  20  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  military  coat-tails  of  General  Taylor,"  then  their 
Presidential  candidate.  This  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  as 
a  text  for  his  reply,  "  Military  coat  tails."  He  had 
written  the  heads  of  what  he  had  intended  to  say  on 
a  few  pages  of  foolscap  paper,  which  he  placed  on 
a  friend's  desk,  bordering  on  an  alley-way,  which  he 
had  obtained  permission  to  speak  from.  At  first  he 
followed  his  notes,  but,  as  he  warmed  up,  he  left  his 
desk  and  his  notes,  to  stride  down  the  alley  toward 
the  Speaker's  chair,  holding  his  left  hand  behind  him 
so  that  he  could  now  and  then  shake  the  tails  of  his 
own  rusty,  black  broadcloth  dress-coat,  while  he 
earnestly  gesticulated  with  his  long  right  arm,  shak- 
ing the  bony  index  finger  at  the  Democrats  on  the 
other  side  of  the  chamber.  Occasionally,  as  he  would 
complete  a  sentence  amid  shouts  of  laughter,  he 
would  return  up  the  alley  to  his  desk,  consult  his 
notes,  take  a  sip  of  water,  and  start  off  again. 

Toward  the  close  of  his  speech,  Mr.  Lincoln  poured 
a  torrent  of  ridicule  upon  the  military  reputation  of 
General  Cass,  and  then  alluded  to  his  own  exploits 
as  a  soldier  in  the  Black  Hawk  War,  "where,"  he 
continued,  "I  fought,  bled,  and  came  away.  If  Gen- 
eral Cass  saw  any  live,  fighting  Indians  at  the  battle 
of  the  Thames,  where  he  served  as  aide-de-camp  to 
General  Harrison,  it  was  more  than  I  did;  but  I  had 
a  good  many  bloody  struggles  with  the  mosquitoes, 
and  although  I  never  fainted  from  the  loss  of  blood, 


BY  BENJAMIN  PERLEY  POO  RE.  221 

I  can  truly  say  I  was  often  very  hungry.  Mr. 
Speaker,"  added  Mr.  Lincoln,  "if  I  should  ever  con- 
clude to  doff  whatever  our  Democratic  friends  may 
suppose  there  is  of  black-cockade  Federalism  about 
me,  and  thereupon  they  shall  take  me  up  as  their 
candidate  for  the  Presidency,  I  protest  they  shall  not 
make  fun  of  me  as  they  have  of  General  Cass  by  at- 
tempting to  write  me  into  a  military  hero." 

Mr.  Lincoln  received  hearty  congratulations  at  the 
close,  many  Democrats  joining  the  Whigs  in  their 
complimentary  comments.  The  speech  was  pro- 
nounced by  the  older  members  of  the  House  almost 
equal  to  the  celebrated  defence  of  General  Harrison 
by  Tom  Corwin,  in  reply  to  an  attack  made  on  him 
by  a  Mr.  Crary  of  Ohio.  The  two  speeches  are 
equally  characterized  by  vigorous  argument,  mirth- 
provoking  irony  and  original  wit.  One  Democrat, 
however  (who  had  been  nicknamed  "  Sausage " 
Sawyer,  from  having  moved  the  expulsion  of  "Rich- 
elieu "  Robinson  from  the  reporter's  gallery  for  a 
facetious  account  of  his  lunching  behind  the  Speak- 
er's chair  on  bologna  sausage),  didn't  enthuse  at  all. 

"  Sawyer,"  asked  an  Eastern  Representative,  "  how 
did  you  like  the  lanky  Illinoisian's  speech  ?  Very 
able,  wasn't  it  ? " 

"  Well,"  replied  Sawyer,  "  the  speech  was  pretty 
good,  but  I  hope  he  won't  charge  mileage  on  his 
travels  while  delivering  it." 


222  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Mr.  Lincoln  boarded  at  Mrs.  Sprlggs,  on  Capitol 
Hill,  where  he  had  as  his  messmates  the  veteran 
Joshua  R.  Giddings,  of  Ohio  ;  John  Blanchard,  John 
Dickey,  A.  R.  Mcllvaine,  John  Strohm,  and  James 
Pollock,  of  Pennsylvania;  Elisha  Embree,  of  Indiana; 
and  P.  \Y.  Tompkins,  of  Mississippi — all  Whigs. 

Daniel  Webster,  who  was  then  in  the  Senate,  used 
occasionally  to  have  Mr.  Lincoln  at  one  of  his  pleas- 
ant Saturday  breakfasts,  where  the  Western  Con- 
gressman's humorous  illustrations  of  the  events  of 
the  day,  sparkling  with  spontaneous  and  unpremedi- 
tated wit,  would  give  great  delight  to  "the  solid  men 
of  Boston  "  assembled  around  the  festive  board.  At 
one  time  Mr.  Lincoln  had  transacted  some  legal 
business  for  Mr.  Webster  connected  with  an  embryo 
city  laid  out  where  Rock  River  empties  into  the 
Mississippi.  Mr.  Fletcher  Webster  had  gone  there 
for  a  while,  but  Rock  Island  City  was  not  a  pecun- 
iary success,  and  much  of  the  land  on  which  but  one 
payment  had  been  made  reverted  to  the  original 
owners.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  charged  Mr.  Webster  for 
his  legal  services  $io,  which  the  Great  Expounder 
of  the  Constitution  regarded  as  too  small  a  fee, 
and  he  would  frequently  declare  that  he  was  still 
Mr.  Lincoln's  debtor. 

With  these  pleasant  recollections  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
it  was  not  strange  that  the  older  correspondents  at 
Washington  were  glad  to   learn   that  he  had  been 


BV  BENJAMIX  PERLEY  POORE.  223 

elected  President ;  nor  did  they  agree  with  Mr. 
Stanton,  who  indulged  in  tirades  against  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, saying  on  one  occasion  he  "  had  met  him  at 
the  bar,  and  found  him  a  low,  cunning  clown." 
They  remembered  their  genial,  story-telling  friend, 
and  felt  confident  that  he  would  be  somewhat  com- 
municative about  public  affairs,  which  President  Bu- 
chanan was  not. 

When  Mr.  Seward  had  Mr.  Lincoln  smuo-o-led 
through  Baltimore  by  night  to  avoid  assassination, 
there  was  some  indignation  manifested  at  Washing- 
ton, for  but  very  few  credited  the  rumors  afloat. 
Senator  Sumner  was  one  of  those  who  believed 
that  the  President-elect  was  in  danger  of  assassina- 
tion, and  he  wrote  him  after  his  arrival,  cautionino- 
him  about  going  out  at  night. 

"  Sumner,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "declined  to  stand 
up  with  me,  back  to  back,  to  see  which  was  the 
tallest  man,  and  made  a  fine  speech  about  this 
being  the  time  for  uniting  our  fronts  against  the 
enemy  and  not  our  backs.  But  I  guess  he  was 
afraid  to  measure,  though  he  is  a  good  piece  of  a 
man.  I  have  never  had  much  to  do  with  bishops 
where  I  live,  but,  do  you  know,  Sumner  is  my  idea 
of  a  bishop." 

Mr.  Lincoln  gave  a  cordial  greeting  to  me  when  I 
called  on  him  after  his  arrival  at  Willard's  Hotel, 
and  he  indulged  in  some  pleasant  reminiscences  of 


2  24  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

his  Congressional  career.  Of  course  I  talked  with 
him  about  his  forthcoming  message,  and  after  hav- 
ing made  me  promise  that  what  he  told  me  should 
not  get  into  print,  he  gave  me  an  account  of  it.  He 
had  written  it  at  his  Springfield  home,  and  had  had 
it  put  in  type  by  his  friend,  the  local  printer.  A 
number  of  sentences  had  been  reconstructed  several 
times  before  they  were  entirely  satisfactory,  and 
then  four  copies  had  been  printed  on  foolscap 
paper.  These  copies  had  been  locked  up  in  what 
Mr.  Lincoln  called  a  "gripsack,"  and  intrusted  to 
his  eldest  son  Robert. 

"  When  we  reached  Harrisburg,"  said  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, "  and  had  washed  up,  I  asked  Bob  where 
the  message  was,  and  was  taken  aback  by  his  con- 
fession that  in  the  excitement  caused  by  the  en- 
thusiastic reception  he  believed  he  had  let  a  waiter 
take  the  gripsack.  My  heart  went  up  into  my 
mouth,  and  I  started  down-stairs,  where  I  was  told 
that  if  a  waiter  had  taken  the  gripsack  I  should 
probably  find  it  in  the  baggage-room.  Going  there 
I  saw  a  large  pile  of  gripsacks  and  other  baggage, 
and  thought  that  I  discovered  mine.  My  key  fitted 
it,  but  on  opening  there  was  nothing  inside  but  a 
few  paper  collars  and  a  flask  of  whiskey.  A  few 
moments  afterward  I  came  across  my  gripsack,  with 
the  document  in  it  all  right,  and  now  I  will  show  it 
to  you — on  your  honor,  mind  !  " 


BY  BENJAMIN  PERLEY  POORE.  225 

The  inaugural  was  printed  in  clear-sized  type, 
and  wherever  Mr.  Lincoln  had  thought  that  a  para- 
graph would  make  an  impression  upon  his  audi- 
ence, he  had  preceded  it  with  a  typographical  fist, 
thus  :  l^^'. 

One  copy  of  this  printed  draft  of  the  inaugural 
message  was  given  to  Mr.  Seward,  and  another  to 
the  venerable  Francis  P.  Blair,  with  request  that 
they  would  read  and  criticise;  and  Mr.  Nicolay,  who 
was  to  be  the  President's  private  secretary,  made  the 
corrected  copy  in  a  fair  hand,  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  to  read.  Mr.  Nicolay  corrected  another  copy, 
which  was  furnished  to  the  press  for  publication, 
and  which  I  now  own. 

At  the  inauguration,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  came  out 
on  the  platform  in  front  of  the  eastern  portico  of 
the  Capitol,  his  tall,  gaunt  figure  rose  above  those 
around  him.  His  personal  friend,  Senator  Baker,  of 
Oregon,  introduced  him  to  the  assemblage,  and  as 
he  bowed  acknowledgments  of  the  somewhat  faint 
cheers  which  greeted  him,  the  usual  genial  smile  lit 
up  his  angular  countenance.  He  was  evidently  per- 
plexed, just  then,  to  know  what  to  do  with  his  new 
silk  hat  and  a  large,  gold-headed  cane.  The  cane  he 
put  under  the  table,  but  the  hat  appeared  to  be  too 
good  to  place  on  the  rough  boards.  Senator  Doug- 
las saw   the   embarrassment  of  his   old  friend,  and, 

rising,  took  the  shining  hat  from  its  bothered  owner 
15 


2  26  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  held  it  during  the  dehvery  of  the  inaugural  ad- 
dress. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  listened  to  with  great  earnestness, 
and  evidently  desired  to  convince  the  multitude  be- 
fore him  rather  than  to  bewilder  or  dazzle  them.  It 
was  plain  that  he  honestly  believed  every  word  that 
he  spoke,  especially  the  concluding  paragraphs,  one 
of  which  I  copy  from  the  original  print : 

*'  1^^  I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies, 
but  friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though 
passion  may  be  strained,  it  must  not  break  our 
bonds  of  affection.  |^^  The  mystic  chords  of  mem- 
ory, which  stretch  from  every  battle-field  and  patriot 
grave  to  every  loved  heart  and  hearthstone  all  over 
our  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the 
Union  when  again  touched,  as  they  surely  will  be, 
by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

The  White  House,  while  Mr.  Lincoln  occupied  it, 
was  a  fertile  field  for  news,  which  he  was  always 
ready  to  give  those  correspondents  in  whom  he  had 
confidence,  but  the  surveillance  of  the  press — first 
by  Secretary  Seward  and  then  by  Secretary  Stan- 
ton— was  as  annoying  as  it  was  inefficient.  A  cen- 
sorship of  all  matter  filed  at  the  Washington  office 
of  the  telegraph,  for  transmission  to  different  North- 
ern cities,  was  exercised  by  a  succession  of  ignorant 
individuals,  some  of  whom  had  to  be  hunted  up  at 
whiskey  shops  when  their  signature  of  approval  was 


£V  BENJAMIN  PER  LEY  POORE.  22/ 

desired.  A  Contrressional  investigfation  showed  how 
stupidly  the  censors  performed  their  duty.  Inno- 
cent sentences  which  were  supposed  to  have  a  hid- 
den meaning  were  stricken  from  paragraphs  which 
were  thus  rendered  nonsensical,  and  information 
was  rejected  that  was  clipped  in  print  from  the 
Washington  papers,  which  it  was  known  regularly 
found  their  way  into  "  Dixie." 

When  irate  correspondents  appealed  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, he  would  good-naturedly  declare  that  he  had 
no  control  over  his  secretaries,  and  would  endeavor 
to  mollify  their  wrath  by  telling  them  a  story.  One 
morning  in  the  winter  of  1862,  when  two  angry 
journalists  had  undertaken  to  explain  the  annoy- 
ances of  the  censorship,  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  lis- 
tened in  his  dreamy  way,  finally  said  : 

"  I  don't  know  much  about  this  censorship,  but 
come  down-stairs  and  I  will  show  you  the  origin  of 
one  of  the  pet  phrases  of  you  newspaper  fellows." 

Leading  the  way  down  into  the  basement,  he 
opened  the  door  of  a  larder,  and  solemnly  pointed 
to  the  hanging  carcass  of  a  gigantic  sheep. 

"  There,"  said  he,  "  now  you  know  what  ' Revcnons 
a  nos  motUons''  means.  It  was  raised  by  Deacon  Buf- 
fum  at  Manchester,  up  in  New  Hampshire.  Who 
can  say,  after  looking  at  it,  that  New  Hampshire's 
only  product  is  granite  ?  " 

Often  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  engaged,  correspond- 


228  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ents  would  send  in  their  cards,  bearing  requests  for 
some  desired  item  of  news,  or  for  the  verification  of 
some  rumor.  He  would  either  come  out  and  give 
the  coveted  information,  or  he  would  write  it  on  the 
back  of  the  card,  and  send  it  to  the  owner.  He 
wrote  a  legible  hand,  slowly  and  laboriously  perfect- 
ing his  sentences  before  he  placed  them  on  paper. 
The  long  epistles  that  he  wrote  to  his  generals  he 
copied  himself,  not  wishing  any  one  else  to  see  them, 
and  these  copies  were  kept  in  pigeon-holes  for  refer- 
ence. His  remarks  at  Gettysburg,  which  have  been 
compared  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  were  written 
in  the  car  on  his  way  from  Washington  to  the  battle- 
field, upon  a  piece  of  pasteboard  held  on  his  knee, 
with  persons  talking  all  around  him  ;  yet  when  a 
few  hours  afterward  he  read  them,  Edward  Everett 
said  : 

"  I  would  rather  be  the  author  of  those  twenty 
lines  than  to  have  all  the  fame  my  oration  of  to-day 
will  o;ive  me." 

The  foreign  war  correspondents  who  came  to 
Washington  quite  outshone  us  resident  scribes  by 
their  pretensions  and  the  style  in  which  they  lived. 
The  most  agreeable  of  them  was  Mr.  Edward  Dyce, 
who  had  written  a  readable  book  on  Count  Cavour ; 
the  most  versatile  was  George  Augustus  Sala,  and 
the  most  brilliant  was  Vizetelly,  whose  clever  pencil- 
sketches  were  in  great  demand.     Anthony  Trollope, 


BY  BENJAMIN  PERLEY  POORS.  229 

who  visited  Washington  on  postal  business  and  cor- 
responded with  a  London  weekly,  was  "English,  you 
know  ;  "  and,  overtopping  all  the  others — in  his  own 
estimation  at  least — was  Dr.  Russell,  of  the  London 
Times.  He  organized  priv^ate  theatricals  at  the 
British  Legation,  appearing  himself  as  Bombastes 
Furioso ;  and  he  gave  pleasant  breakfast  and  supper 
parties.  When  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  at  last 
ready  to  move,  he  obtained  a  head-quarter  pass  for 
himself  and  his  well-stocked  ambulance.  But  when 
he  drove  down  to  the  steamer  Canomcus,  on  which 
transportation  had  been  given  him,  the  provost 
guard  refused,  by  orders  from  the  War  Department, 
to  permit  him  to  embark.  He  hastened  to  enlist  the 
intercession  of  Senator  Sumner  and  Lord  Lyons,  the 
British  Minister,  who  appealed  to  Secretary  Stanton, 
but  found  him  inexorable.  Secretary  Seward  said 
that  he  was  powerless,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  refused  to 
interfere,  saying  grimly  : 

"  This  fellow  Russell's  Bull  Run  letter  was  not  so 
complimentary  as  to  entitle  him  to  much  favor." 

Unable  to  accompany  the  army.  Dr.  Russell  sold 
his  expensive  ambulance  and  horses,  shook  the  dust 
from  his  feet,  and  returned  to  London. 

Requests  for  his  autograph  signature  were  a  source 
of  annoyance  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  often  had  to  sign 
his  name  twenty-five  or  thirty  times  a  day.  When 
Dr.  R.  Shelton  Mackenzie,  of  Philadelphia,  called  at 


230  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  White  House  and  asked  for  the  President's 
autograph,  Mr.  Lincoln  said  : 

"  Will  you  have  it  on  a  card  or  on  a  sheet  of 
paper?" 

"  If  the  choice  rested  with  myself,"  said  the  jovial 
doctor,  "  I  should  prefer  it  at  the  foot  of  a  com- 
mission." 

Mr.  Lincoln  smiled,  and  shook  his  head  as  if  he 
did  not  see  it  in  that  light,  but  he  sat  down  and 
wrote  a  few  pleasant  lines,  adding  his  legible  signa- 
ture, "A.  Lincoln." 

After  having  signed  the  famous  Emancipation 
Proclamation  on  the  ist  of  January,  1863,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln carefully  put  away  the  pen  which  he  had  used, 
for  Mr.  Sumner,  who  had  promised  it  to  his  friend 
George  Livermore,  of  Cambridge,  the  author  of  an 
interesting  work  on  slavery.  It  was  a  steel  pen  with 
a  wooden  handle,  the  end  of  which  had  been  gnawed 
by  Mr.  Lincoln — a  habit  that  he  had  when  compos- 
ing anything  that  required  thought, 

Mr.  Lincoln  used  to  wear  at  the  White  House,  in 
the  morning  and  after  dinner,  a  long-skirted,  faded 
dressing-gown,  belted  around  his  waist,  and  slippers. 
His  favorite  attitude  when  listening — and  he  was  a 
good  listener — was  to  lean  forward  and  clasp  his  left 
knee  with  both  hands,  as  if  fondling  it,  and  his  face 
would  then  wear  a  sad,  wearied  look.  But  when  the 
time  came  for  him  to  give  an  opinion  on  what  he  had 


BY  BENJAMIN  PER  LEY  POORE.  23  I 

heard,  or  to  tell  a  story, which  something  said  "re- 
minded him  of,"  his  face  would  lighten  up  with  its 
homely,  rugged  smile,  and  he  would  run  his  fingers 
through  his  bristly  black  hair,  which  would  stand 
out  in  every  direction  like  that  of  an  electric  experi- 
ment doll. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  part  In  subduing  the  rebellion  will 
be  better  appreciated  as  time  clears  away  the  mists 
of  race  prejudice  and  the  fogs  of  political  intrigue. 
He  was  surrounded  by  able  men,  widely  differing  in 
opinion  on  the  negro,  but  each  one  hoping  that  he 
would  be  President  of  the  United  States.  To  curb 
their  ambitions,  to  humor  their  prejudices,  and  to 
make  them,  as  he  once  expressed  it,  "  pull  in  the 
traces,"  was  no  easy  task,  and  required  such  a  self- 
sacrificing  man,  of  large  brain  and  heart,  to  direct 
public  affairs,  as  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 

BENJAMIN  PERLEY  POORE. 


XII. 

Titian  J.  Coffey. 

FEW  men  have  had  the  opportunity  to  render 
services  so  important  and  beneficial  to  the  coun- 
try and  humanity  as  Abraham  Lincoln.  But  we  may 
question  whether  his  career  as  President  and  Eman- 
cipator through  the  trying  scenes  of  the  great  Civil 
War,  or  even  the  tragic  and  touching  incidents  of 
his  untimely  death,  would  have  excited  and  kept 
alive  the  affectionate  and  ever-increasing  interest  in 
his  character,  if  that  character  had  not  been  marked 
by  traits,  some  of  them  quaint,  original  and  homely, 
that  appealed  to  the  common  heart  of  mankind  and 
revealed  that  touch  of  nature  that  makes  the  whole 
world  kin.  It  has  been  often  and  truthfully  said  of 
him  that  he  was  a  man  whose  heart  lay  close  to  the 
great  popular  heart  and  felt  its  beatings.  Even  after 
he  had  reached  the  perilous  elevation  of  the  White 
House,  where  the  truth  is  apt  to  be  seen  through 
very  refracted  mediums,  he  never  for  a  moment  lost 
the  faculty  of  reading  the  mind  of  those  whom  he 
called  "  the  plain  people."  In  truth  he  was,  by  birth, 
education,   experience    and  sympathy,  one   of  "the 


2  34  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOIN 

plain  people  "  himself,  and  the  traits  that  make  him 
so  uniquely  interesting  were  simply  the  outgrowth 
of  a  mind  original  and  vigorous,  and  a  kindly  heart 
developed  by  and  taking  shape  from  the  modes  of 
thought  and  expression,  the  habits  and  manner  of 
life  of  the  people  amid  whom  he  had  been  brought 
up  and  lived.  Born  in  England  or  Massachusetts, 
and  educated  in  conventional  fashion  at  Oxford  or 
Harvard,  he  would  doubtless  have  been  a  man  of 
mark  and  power,  but  he  would  not  have  been  the 
Abraham  Lincoln  whom  the  people  knew  and  loved. 
The  training  of  the  schools  would  probably  have 
polished  away,  not  indeed  the  native  humor  and 
shrewd  faculty  of  observation,  but  that  quaint  and 
original  habit  of  thought  and  speech  which  found 
constant  expression  in  racy  and  effective  phrase  and 
in  stories  of  Western  life,  often  homely  but  never 
obscene,  and  always  singularly  apt  in  illustration. 

But  I  am  not  writing  an  essay  on  Mr.  Lincoln's  char- 
acter or  genius.  My  less  ambitious  work  is  to  record 
a  few  examples  of  his  "  preaching  by  parables,"  and 
of  his  habit  of  condensing  an  idea  into  a  single  tell- 
ing phrase. 

When  these  incidents  happened  I  may  premise 
that  I  was  in  the  public  service,  and,  by  virtue  of  a 
custom  established  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  had  occasional 
access  to  the  Cabinet  meetings  during  the  absence 
of  my  departmental  chief,  the  Attorney-General. 


B  V  TITIAN  J.    COFFE  V.  2  35 

The  skill  and  success  with  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  dispose  of  an  embarrassing  question  or  avoid 
premature  committal  to  a  policy  advocated  by  others 
is  well  known.  He  knew  how  to  send  applicants 
away  in  good  humor  even  when  they  failed  to  ex- 
tract the  desired  response. 

A  story  told  of  him  after  General  Cameron's  re- 
tirement from  the  War  Department  illustrates  this 
habit.  Every  one  knows  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet 
was  chosen  chiefly  from  his  rivals  for  the  Presiden- 
tial nomination,  and  from  considerations  largely 
political.  But  the  exigencies  of  the  war  demanded, 
in  the  opinion  of  many  good  Republicans,  a  reorgan- 
ization of  the  Cabinet  based  on  the  special  fitness  of 
each  member  for  the  great  work  in  hand.  Of  this 
opinion  were  some  of  the  leading  Republican  Sen- 
ators. After  the  retirement  of  General  Cameron 
they  held  a  caucus  and  appointed  a  committee  to 
wait  on  the  President.  The  committee  represented 
that,  inasmuch  as  the  Cabinet  had  not  been  chosen 
with  reference  to  the  war,  and  had  more  or  less  lost 
the  confidence  of  the  country,  and  since  the  Presi- 
dent had  decided  to  select  a  new  War  Minister,  they 
thought  the  occasion  was  opportune  to  change  the 
whole  seven  Cabinet  Ministers.  They  therefore  ear- 
nestly advised  him  to  make  a  clean  sweep  and  select 
seven  new  men,  and  so  restore  the  waning  confidence 
of  the  country. 


236  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  President  listened  with  patient  courtesy,  and 
when  the  Senators  had  concluded  he  said,  with  a 
characteristic  gleam  of  humor  in  his  eye  : 

"  Gentlemen,  your  request  for  a  change  of  the 
whole  Cabinet  because  I  have  made  one  change 
reminds  me  of  a  story  I  once  heard  in  Illinois  of  a 
farmer  who  was  much  troubled  by  skunks.  They 
annoyed  his  household  at  night,  and  his  wife  insisted 
that  he  should  take  measures  to  get  rid  of  them. 
One  moonlight  night  he  loaded  his  old  shot-gun  and 
stationed  himself  in  the  yard  to  watch  for  the  in- 
truders, his  wife  remaining  in  the  house  anxiously 
awaiting  the  result.  After  some  time  she  heard  the 
shot-gun  go  off,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  farmer  en- 
tered the  house.  'What  luck  had  you?'  said  she. 
'  I  hid  myself  behind  the  wood-pile,'  said  the  old 
man,  *  with  the  shot-gun  pointed  toward  the  hen- 
roost, and  before  long  there  appeared  not  one  skunk 
but  seven.  I  took  aim,  blazed  away,  killed  one,  and 
he  raised  such  a  fearful  smell  that  I  concluded  it  was 
best  to  let  the  other  six  go.'  " 

With  a  hearty  laugh  the  Senators  retired,  and 
nothing  more  was  heard  of  Cabinet  reconstruction. 

One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  most  amiable  qualities  was 
the  patience  and  gentleness  with  which  he  would 
listen  to  people  who  thought  they  had  wrongs  to 
redress  or  claims  to  enforce.  But  sometimes,  when 
his  patience  had  been  abused  for  selfish  or  unworthy 


BY   TITIAX  J.    COFFEY.  237 

purposes,  he  was  quite  capable  of  administering  a 
caustic  rebuke  in  his  own  way. 

One  day,  when  he  was  alone  and  busily  engaged 
on  an  important  subject,  involving  vexation  and  anx- 
iety, he  was,  by  some  mischance,  disturbed  by  the 
unwarranted  intrusion  of  three  men,  who,  without 
apology,  proceeded  to  lay  their  claim  before  him. 
The  spokesman  of  the  three  reminded  the  President 
that  they  were  the  owners  of  some  torpedo  or  other 
warlike  invention  which,  if  the  government  would 
only  adopt  it,  would  soon  crush  the  rebellion. 
"  Now,"  said  the  spokesman,  "we  have  been  here  to 
see  you  time  and  again ;  you  have  referred  us  to  the 
Secretary  of  War,  to  the  Chief  of  Ordnance,  and  the 
General  of  the  Army,  and  they  give  us  no  satisfac- 
tion. We  have  been  kept  here  waiting,  till  money 
and  patience  are  exhausted,  and  we  now  come  to 
demand  of  you  a  final  reply  to  our  application." 

Mr.  Lincoln  listened  quietly  to  this  insolent  tirade, 
and  at  its  close  the  old  twinkle  came  into  his  eye. 

"You  three  gentlemen  remind  me  of  a  story  I 
once  heard,"  said  he,  "  of  a  poor  little  boy  out  West 
who  had  lost  his  mother.  His  father  wanted  to  give 
him  a  religious  education,  and  so  placed  him  in  the 
family  of  a  clergyman,  whom  he  directed  to  instruct 
the  little  fellow  carefully  in  the  Scriptures.  Every 
day  the  boy  was  required  to  commit  to  memory  and 
recite  one  chapter  of  the  Bible.      Things  proceeded 


238  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

smoothly  until  they  reached  that  chapter  which  de- 
tails the  story  of  the  trials  of  Shadrach,  Meshach,  and 
Abednego  in  the  fiery  furnace.  The  boy  got  on  well 
until  he  was  asked  to  repeat  these  three  names,  but 
he  had  forgotten  them.  His  teacher  told  him  he 
must  learn  them,  and  gave  him  another  day  to  do  so. 
Next  day  the  boy  again  forgot  them.  '  Now,'  said 
the  teacher,  'you  have  again  failed  to  remember 
those  names,  and  you  can  go  no  further  till  you  have 
learned  them.  I  will  give  you  another  day  on  this 
lesson,  and  if  you  don't  repeat  the  names  I  will  pun- 
ish you.'  A  third  time  the  boy  came  to  recite,  and 
got  down  to  the  stumbling-block,  when  the  clergy- 
man said :  '  Now  tell  me  the  names  of  the  men  in  the 
fiery  furnace.'  *  Oh,'  said  the  boy,  '  here  come  those 
three  infernal  bores  !     I  wish  the  devil  had  them  ! '  " 

Havine  received  their  "  final  answer  "  the  three 
patriots  retired,  and  at  the  Cabinet  meeting  which 
followed  directly  after,  the  President,  in  high  good 
humor,  related  how  he  had  dismissed  his  untimely 
visitors. 

The  humorous  aspect  of  a  subject  never  failed  to 
strike  him,  and  the  illustrative  story  was  as  ready 
for  a  grrave  matter  of  business  as  in  its  lighter 
hours.  Often  during  the  war  United  States  mar- 
shals made  arrests  and  seizures,  the  legality  of  which 
would  be  tested  by  judicial  proceedings  against 
them.      For  their  protection  Congress  appropriated 


BV    TITIAN  J,  COFFEY.  239 

$100,000,  to  be  expended  under  the  direction  of  the 
President  in  defendino-  United  States  officers  in 
such  suits.  Some  of  the  marshals  thus  sued  had 
been  clamorous  for  orders  from  the  Attorney-Gen- 
eral to  the  United  States  district-attorneys  to  de- 
fend these  suits.  But  when  it  became  known  that 
the  President  had  $too,ooo  for  this  purpose  the 
marshals  ceased  to  importune  the  Attorney-General 
for  counsel,  and  *'  went  "  for  the  money. 

In  submitting  to  the  President  some  rules  for  his 
approval  under  which  the  fund  should  be  paid  to 
the  marshals,  I  spoke  of  the  fact  that  they  no  longer 
sought  the  aid  of  the  district-attorneys  but  were 
all  anxious  to  get  control  of  the  money.  "  Yes," 
said  he,  "  they  will  now  all  be  after  the  money  and 
be  content  with  nothing  else.  They  are  like  a  man 
in  Illinois,  whose  cabin  was  burned  down,  and  ac- 
cording to  the  kindly  custom  of  early  days  in  the 
West,  his  neighbors  all  contributed  something  to 
start  him  again.  In  his  case  they  had  been  so  lib- 
eral that  he  soon  found  himself  better  off  than  be- 
fore the  fire,  and  he  got  proud.  One  day,  a  neigh- 
bor brouorht  him  a  baor  of  oats,  but  the  fellow  re- 
fused  it  with  scorn.  '  No,'  said  he,  '  I'm  not  taking 
oats  now.      I  take  nothing  but  money.'  " 

A  friend  of  mine  was  one  of  a  delegation  who 
called  on  Mr.  Lincoln  to  ask  the  appointment  of 
a  gentleman  as  Commissioner  to  the  Sandwich  Isl- 


240  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ands.  They  presented  their  case  as  earnestly  as 
possible,  and,  besides  his  fitness  for  the  place,  they 
urged  that  he  was  in  bad  health,  and  a  residence 
in  that  balmy  climate  would  be  of  great  benefit  to 
him.  The  President  closed  the  interview  with  this 
discouraging  remark : 

"  Gentlemen,  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  there  are 
eight  other  applicants  for  that  place,  and.  they  are  all 
sicker  than  your  man." 

Many  examples  might  be  given  of  felicitous 
phrases,  often  of  rustic  origin,  that  gave  point  to  his 
speech.  Once,  presenting  to  him  an  eminent  law- 
yer, the  President  courteously  said  he  was  familiar 
with  the  Judge's  professional  reputation.  The  Judge 
responded  : 

"  And  we  do  not  forget  that  you,  too,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, are  a  distinguished  member  of  the  bar." 

"  Oh,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln  modestly,  "  I'm  only  a 
7nast-fcd  lawyer." 

If  there  be  any  who  do  not  see  the  point  of  this 
quaint  suggestion  of  a  self-educated  lawyer,  let  them 
look  at  the  illustration  from  Dr.  South  under  the 
word  "mast"  in  Webster's  Dictionary. 

When  Attorney-General  Bates  resigned,  late  in 
1864  (following  the  resignation  of  Postmaster-Gen- 
eral Blair  earlier  in  that  year),  the  Cabinet  was 
left  without  a  Southern  member.  A  few  days  be- 
fore the  meeting  of  the  Supreme  Court,  which  then 


BV    TITIAN  J.    COFFEY.  24 1 

met  in  December,  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  for  me  and 
said  : 

"  My  Cabinet  has  shrjink  tip  North,  and  I  must 
find  a  Southern  man.  I  suppose  if  the  twelve 
Apostles  were  to  be  chosen  nowadays  the  shrieks 
of  locality  would  have  to  be  heeded.  I  have  invited 
Judge  Holt  to  become  Attorney-General,  but  he 
seems  unwilling  to  undertake  the  Supreme  Court 
work.  I  want  you  to  see  him,  remove  his  objection 
if  you  can,  and  bring  me  his  answer." 

I  then  had  charcre  of  the  orovernment  cases  in 
the  Supreme  Court,  and  they  were  all  ready  for 
argument.  I  saw  Judge  Holt,  explained  the  situa- 
tion, and  assured  him  that  he  need  not  appear  in 
court  unless  he  chose  to  do  so.  He  had,  however, 
decided  to  decline  the  invitation,  and  I  returned  to 
the  President  and  so  informed  him. 

''Then,"  said  he,  "I  will  offer  it  to  James  Speed, 
of  Louisville,  a  man  I  know  well,  though  not  so  well 
as  I  know  his  brother  Joshua.  That,  however,  is 
not  strange,  for  I  slept  with  Joshua  for  four  years, 
and  I  suppose  I  ought  to  know  him  well.  But 
James  is  an  honest  man  and  a  gentleman,  and  if  he 
comes  here  you  will  find  he  is  one  of  those  well- 
poised  men,  not  too  common  here,  who  are  not 
spoiled  by  a  big  office." 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  himself  a  perfect  illustration  of 

that  remark.      His  modest,  manly  nature  was  quite 

16 


242  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

unaffected  by  the  accidents  of  place  and  power.  It 
was  a  common  saying  that  he  was  far  more  acces- 
sible than  many  a  chief  of  bureau  or  clerk.  Many 
authentic  anecdotes  are  told  to  show  the  kindness 
with  which  he  received  and  heard  the  stories  of 
those  whom  the  sorrows  of  the  war  brought  to  him 
for  relief,  and  no  bruised  heart  ever  came  to  him  to 
invoke  Executive  clemency  or  assistance  that  did 
not  go  away,  if  not  healed,  at  least  consoled  and 
grateful  for  patient  hearing  and  kindly  sympathy. 

In  the  spring  of  1863,  a  very  handsome  and  at- 
tractive young  lady  from  Philadelphia  came  to  my 
office  with  a  note  from  a  friend,  askino^  me  to  assist 
her  in  obtaining-  an  interview  with  the  President. 
Some  time  before  she  had  been  married  to  a  young 
man  who  was  a  lieutenant  in  a  Pennsylvania  regi- 
ment. He  had  been  compelled  to  leave  her  the  day 
after  the  wedding  to  rejoin  his  command  in  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac.  After  some  time  he  obtained 
leave  of  absence,  returned  to  Philadelphia,  and 
started  on  a  brief  honeymoon  journey  with  his  bride. 
A  movement  of  the  army  being  imminent,  the  War 
Department  issued  a  peremptory  order  requiring  all 
absent  officers  to  rejoin  their  regiments  by  a  certain 
day  on  penalty  of  dismissal  in  case  of  disobedience. 
The  bride  and  groom,  away  on  their  hurried  wedding 
tour,  failed  to  see  the  order,  and  on  their  return  he 
was  met  by  a  notice  of  his  dismissal  from  the  service. 


BY  TITIAN  J.  COFFEY.  ^JLX 

The  young  fellow  was  completely  prostrated  by  the 
disgrace,  and  his  wife  hurried  to  Washington  to  get 
him  restored.  I  obtained  for  her  an  interview  with 
the  President.  She  told  her  story  with  simple  and 
pathetic  eloquence,  and  wound  up  by  saying  : 

"  Mr.  Lincoln,  won't  you  help  us  ?  I  promise  you, 
if  you  will  restore  him,  he  will  be  faithful  to  his 
duty." 

The  President  had  listened  to  her  with  evident 
sympathy,  and  a  half-amused  smile  at  her  earnest- 
ness, and  as  she  closed  her  appeal  he  said  with  pa- 
rental kindness  : 

"  And  you  say,  my  child,  that  Fred  was  compelled 
to  leave  you  the  day  after  the  wedding  ?  Poor  fel- 
low, I  don't  wonder  at  his  anxiety  to  get  back,  and 
if  he  stayed  a  little  longer  than  he  ought  to  have 
done  we'll  have  to  overlook  his  fault  this  time. 
Take  this  card  to  the  Secretary  of  War  and  he  will 
restore  your  husband." 

She  went  to  the  War  Department,  saw  the  Sec- 
retary, who  rebuked  her  for  troubling  the  President, 
and  dismissed  her  somewhat  curtly.  As  it  hap- 
pened, on  her  way  down  the  War  Department 
stairs,  her  hopes  chilled  by  the  Secretary's  abrupt 
manner,  she  met  the  President  ascending.  He 
recognized  her,  and  with  a  pleasant  smile  said': 

"Well,  my  dear,  have  you  seen  the  Secretary?" 

"Yes,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  she  replied,  "and  he  seemed 


2A4  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

very  angry  with  me  for  going  to  you.  Won't  you 
speak  to  him  for  me  ? " 

"  Give  yourself  no  trouble,"  said  he.  "  I  will  see 
that  the  order  is  issued." 

And  in  a  few  days  her  husband  was  remanded  to 
his  regiment.  I  am  sorry  to  add  that,  not  long 
after,  he  was  killed  at  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  thus 
sealing  with  his  blood  her  pledge  that  he  should  be 
faithful  to  his  duty. 

Attorney-General  Bates,  who  was  a  Virginian  by 
birth  and  had  many  relatives  in  that  State,  one  day 
heard  that  a  young  Virginian,  the  son  of  one  of  his 
old  friends,  had  been  captured  across  the  Potomac, 
was  a  prisoner  of  war,  and  was  not  in  good  health. 
Knowing  the  boy's  father  to  be  in  his  heart  a  Union 
man,  Mr.  Bates  conceived  the  idea  of  having  the  son 
paroled  and  sent  home,  of  course  under  promise  not 
to  return  to  the  army.  He  went  to  see  the  President 
and  said  : 

"  I  have  a  personal  favor  to  ask.  I  want  you  to 
give  me  a  prisoner." 

And  he  told  him  of  the  case.     The  President  said  : 

"  Bates,  I  have  an  almost  parallel  case.  The  son 
of  an  old  friend  of  mine  in  Illinois  ran  off  and  entered 
the  rebel  army.  The  young  fool  has  been  captured, 
is  a  prisoner  of  war,  and  his  old  broken-hearted  father 
has  asked  me  to  send  him  home,  promising  of  course 
to  keep  him  there.      I  have  not  seen  my  way  clear  to 


BY    TITAIN  J.  COFFEY.  .  245 

do  it,  but  If  you  and  I  unite  our  influence  with  this 
administration  I  believe  we  can  manage  it  together 
and  make  two  loyal  fathers  happy.  Let  us  make 
them  our  prisoners." 

And  he  did  so. 

I  often  heard  the  Attorney-General  say  on  his 
return  from  important  Cabinet  meetings  that  the 
more  he  saw  of  Mr.  Lincoln  the  more  was  he  im- 
pressed with  the  clearness  and  vigor  of  his  intellect 
and  the  breadth  and  sagacity  of  his  views,  and  he 
would  add  : 

"  He  is  beyond  question  the  master-mind  of  the 
Cabinet." 

No  man  could  talk  with  him  on  public  questions 
without  being  struck  with  the  singular  lucidity  of 
his  mind  and  the  rapidity  with  which  he  fastened  on 
the  essential  point. 

A  day  or  two  after  the  news  came  of  the  stopping 
of  the  English  steamer  Trent  by  Admiral  Wilkes, 
and  the  forcible  capture  of  Mason  and  Slidell,  the 
President  walked  into  the  Attorney-General's  room, 
and  as  he  seated  himself  said  to  that  officer  : 

"  I  am  not  getting  much  sleep  out  of  that  exploit 
of  Wilkes',  and  I  suppose  we  must  look  up  the  law 
of  the  case.  I  am  not  much  of  a  prize  lawyer,  but  it 
seems  to  me  pretty  clear  that  if  Wilkes  saw  fit  to 
make  that  capture  on  the  high  seas  he  had  no  right 
to  turn  his  quarter-deck  into  a  prize  court." 


246  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

His  mind  quickly  saw  the  point  which,  first  of  all, 
gave  the  act  its  gravest  and  most  indefensible  aspect. 

The  memory  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  and  always 
will  be  precious  to  the  American  people,  and  the 
better  his  character  and  conduct  are  understood  the 
brighter  will  he  shine  among  those  names  that  the 
world  will  not  willingly  let  die. 

TITIAN  J.   COFFEY. 


'wmum 


XIII. 

Henry  Ward   Beecher. 

MY  acquaintance  with  Lincoln  could  hardly  be 
called  an  acquaintance.  I  was  rather  an 
observer.  I  followed  him  as  I  did  every  public 
character  during  the  antislavery  conflict.  The  first 
thing  that  really  awakened  my  interest  in  him  was 
his  speeches  parallel  with  Douglas  in  Illinois,  and 
indeed  it  was  that  manifestation  of  ability  that 
secured  his  nomination  to  the  Presidency.  It  was 
a  matter  of  great  importance  that  the  new  Presiden- 
tial election  should  have  another  candidate  than 
Fremont,  and  Lincoln's  speech  at  the  Cooper  Union, 
after  his  controversy  with  Douglas,  settled  it. 

Seward  expected  the  nomination,  but  overhopeful 
nature  would,  I  think,  have  gone  far  to  damage  the 
whole  country  if  he  had  been  President,  and  the 
nomination  of  Lincoln  was,  to  begin  with,  the  reve- 
lation of  the  hand  of  God. 

He  was,  in  the  most  significant  way,  a  man  that 
embodied  all  the  best  qualities  of  unspoiled,  middle- 
class  men.  He  had  the  homely  common  sense  ;  he 
had  honesty  with  sagacity  ;   and  he  had  sympathetic 


248  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

nature  that  prepared  him  to  accept  any  stormy 
times.  The  colored  people  were  the  helpless  wards ; 
the  Southern  people,  our  fellow-citizens. 

The  weakness  of  human  nature  is  such  that  when 
a  man  is  born  he  is  helpless  ;  and  he  can  never  stand 
up  against  the  public  sentiment  of  the  age  in  which 
he  lives.  Lincoln  was  able  to  deal  with  all  classes 
of  men,  from  his  very  nature.  When  he  first  went 
to  Washington,  the  general  opinion  was  that  he  was 
an  honest  man  but  lacked  in  sagacity  ;  but  a  friend 
told  me  he  was  the  best  judge  of  men  in  the  country. 
Thus  far  in  a  general  way. 

I  was  editor  of  the  Independent  in  1861-2,  and  of 
course  my  duty  compelled  me  to  keep  the  run  of 
things,  and  know  what  was  going  on  behind  and 
outside. 

The  first  visit  I  ever  made  to  Washington  was  be- 
fore the  war.  The  organization  of  the  church  was 
controlled  by  the  South,  and  I  walked  the  streets 
and  was  regarded  by  the  people  there  as  a  sort  of 
dangerous  animal.  They  stood  and  looked  at  me  as 
they  would  a  bull-dog  or  bear.  I  did  not  go  to 
Washington  again  until  1862. 

In  1862,  the  great  delay,  the  want  of  any  success, 
the  masterly  inactivity  of  our  leading  generals,  roused 
my  indignation,  and  I  wrote  a  series  of  editorials  ad- 
dressed to  the  President  (three  or  four),  and  as  near 
as  I  can  recollect  they  were  in  the  nature  of  a  mow- 


BY  HENRY    WARD   BEECHER.  249 

ing  machine — they  cut  at  every  revolution — and  I 
was  told  one  day  that  the  President  had  received 
them  and  read  them  through  with  very  serious  coun- 
tenance, and  that  his  only  criticism  was  :  "  Is  thy 
servant  a  dog  ? "  They  bore  down  on  him  very 
hard. 

I  went  to  England  in  1863,  not  directly  or  in- 
directly by  request  of  Mr.  Lincoln  or  of  Mr,  Sew- 
ard, and  was  opposed  to  speaking  there  until  I  was 
dragged  into  it  by  things  over  there. 

On  my  return  from  England  I  fell  in  with  Stan- 
ton, and  I  consider  him  to  be  head  and  shoulders 
above  all  others  in  that  conflict. 

There  was  some  talk,  early  in  1864,  of  a  sort  of 
compromise  with  the  South.  Blair  had  told  the 
President  that  he  was  satisfied  if  he  could  be  put 
in  communication  with  some  of  the  leading  men 
of  the  South  in  some  way  or  other,  that  some 
benefit  would  accrue.  Lincoln  had  sent  a  deleea- 
tion  to  meet  Alexander  Stephens,  and  that  was  all 
the  North  knew.  We  were  all  very  much  excited 
over  that.  The  war  lasted  so  long,  and  I  was  afraid 
Lincoln  would  be  so  anxious  for  peace,  and  I  was 
afraid  he  would  accept  something  that  would  be  of 
advantage  to  the  South,  so  I  went  to  Washington 
and  called  upon  him.  We  were  alone  in  his  receiv- 
ing-room. His  hair  was  "every  way  for  Sunday." 
It  looked   as   though   it  was  an  abandoned  stubble 


2  CO  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

field.  He  had  on  slippers,  and  his  vest  was  what 
was  called  "going  free."  He  looked  wearied,  and 
when  he  sat  down  in  a  chair,  looked  as  though  every 
limb  wanted  to  drop  off  his  body.  And  I  said  to 
him,  "  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  come  to  you  to  know  whether 
the  public  interest  will  permit  you  to  explain  to  me 
what  this  Southern  commission  means  ?  I  am  in  a 
position  as  editor,  not  wont  to  step  in  the  dark." 
Well,  he  listened  very  patiently,  and  looked  up  to 
the  ceiling  for  a  few  moments,  and  said  :  "  Well,  I 
am  almost  of  a  mind  to  show  you  all  the  docu- 
ments." 

"  Well,  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  should  like  to  see  them  if 
it  is  proper."  He  went  to  his  little  secretary,  and 
came  out  and  handed  me  a  little  card  as  long  as  my 
finofer  and  an  inch  wide,  and  on  that  was  written — 

o 

"You  will  pass  the  bearer  through  the  lines"  (or 
something  to  that  effect). 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

"There,"  he  said,  "is  all  there  is  of  it.  Now 
Blair  thinks  something  can  be  done,  but  I  don't,  but 
I  have  no  objection  to  have  him  try  his  hand.  He 
has  no  authority  whatever  but  to  go  and  see  what 
he  can  do." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "you  have  lifted  a  great  burden 
off  my  mind." 

Well,  that  being  all  safely  over,  we  talked  a  little 


BY  HENRY    WARD  BEE  CHER.  25  I 

about  Other  things,  and  some  one  came  in  and  said 
to  him  that  a  deputation  had  just  arrived  and  wanted 
to  see  him. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "you  come  along  with  me."  I 
said  I  did  not  want  to  make  any  remarks,  but  he 
said,  "Come  along." 

We  went  to  a  balcony  window,  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
made  a  few  courteous  remarks,  and  then  he  said, 
"Now  Mr.  Beecher  will  talk  to  you."  I  do  not 
remember  what  I  said — a  few  words. 

I  do  not  know  that  I  ever  met  him  after  that. 

John  Dufrees  was  Public  Printer,  and  was  my  old 
friend  and  chum.  He  was  intimately  acquainted 
with  him,  and  he  gave  me  a  good  many  things  which 
would  come  more  properly  from  him  than  me. 

When  Mrs.  Stowe  called  to  see  Lincoln  towards 
the  close  of  the  war,  she  says  that  she  spoke  of  the 
great  relief  he  must  feel  at  the  prospect  of  an  early 
close  of  the  war  and  the  establishment  of  peace. 
And  he  said,  in  a  sad  way,  "  No,  Mrs.  Stowe,  I  shall 
never  live  to  see  peace  ;  this  war  is  killing  me  ;  " 
and  he  had  a  presentiment  that  he  would  not  live 
long,  that  he  had  put  his  whole  life  into  the  war,  and 
that  when  it  was  over  he  would  then  collapse. 

Nobody  will  ever  understand  Lincoln  who  is  not 
acquainted  with  Western  character  and  habit  of 
thirty  or  forty  years  ago. 

I  have  heard  of  these  stories  from  Stanton.     Stan- 


252 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  IINCOIN 


ton  was  as  tender  as  a  woman — he  was  as  tender  as 
a  lover.      I  had  great  admiration  for  him. 

I  came  up  Wall  Street  one  day  and  met  a  friend 
who  said :  "  I  just  came  back  from  Washington. 
Stanton  is  breaking  down  ;  he  won't  hold  out  much 
lonpfer." 

Well,  it  just  struck  me  all  in  a  heap.  I  walked 
into  one  of  those  offices  in  Wall  Street  and  said, 
"Will  you  allow  me  pen  and  ink?"  and  wrote  to 
him  just  what  I  had  heard — that  he  was  sick  and 
broken  down  and  desponding.  I  wrote  that  he  need 
not  despond,  that  the  country  was  saved,  and,  if  he 
did  not  do  another  thing,  he  had  done  enough.  I 
sent  the  letter,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  days  I  got 
back  a  letter,  and  if  it  had  been  a  woman  writing  in 
answer  to  a  proposal  it  could  not  have  been  more 
tender.  And  when  I  went  to  Washington  he  treated 
me  with  great  tenderness,  as  if  I  had  been  his  son. 

When  Johnson  had  come  to  the  Presidency,  and 
Stanton  and  every  one  was  anxious  that  he  should 
be  kept  in  Northern  influence,  I  went  down  to 
Washington  to  preach  the  funeral  sermon.  The 
President  was  there,  and  he  asked  me  to  call  and  see 
him — that  he  would  be  happy  to  see  me. 

Stanton  said,  "Go."  I  afterward  went  to  see  the 
President.  I  returned  to  Stanton's  and  went  into 
his  study,  and  he  got  a  box  of  cigars,  and  I  thought 
that  if  I   did  not  smoke  he  would  not  like  it,  and  I 


BV  HENRY  WARD  BEECHER.  253 

took  a  smoke,  although  it  made  me  sick — puffing 
occasionally — and  when  he  threw  away  his,  I  did 
mine. 

Stanton,  evidently,  got  rest  from  his  great  cares 
through  literature;  but  Lincoln,  from  the  humorists. 
I  understood  them  both  perfectly.  Stanton  had 
poetry  for  his  relaxation.  Everybody  must  have 
somewhere  to  blow  off. 

HENRY   WARD    BEECHER. 


XIV. 

William  D.  Kelley. 
I. 

THE  object  of  this  series  of  sketches  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  by  men  who  were  intimately  acquainted 
with  him  is,  as  I  understand  it,  to  perpetuate  the 
memory  of  illustrative  facts  of  his  current  life,  and 
thus  provide  materials  for  future  biography. 

Remembering  that  it  is  not  for  "  impressions  of 
his  character,  but  for  incidents  illustrative  thereof," 
that  I  have  been  asked,  I  find  a  fitting  prelude  to 
my  reminiscences  in  a  rapid  allusion  to  our  first 
meeting.  It  took  place  in  the  reception-room  and 
library  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Springfield  home  on  the 
evening  of  the  day  succeeding  his  nomination  for  the 
Presidency  by  the  Republican  Convention.  It  so 
happened  that,  though  we  had  never  met,  I  was  not 
entirely  unknown  to  him.  He  had  heard  of  the  so- 
norous voice  of  the  Pennsylvania  delegate,  who,  fa- 
voring the  nomination  of  Lincoln  or  Wade,  and  who, 
having  been  informed  of  the  details  of  an  arrange- 
ment by  which  the  immense  audience  that  would 
throng   the  wigwam   on  the  evening  preceding  the 


256  REMINISCENCES  OF  A  BR  A  HA  AI  LINCOLN 

formal  opening  of  the  Convention  should  be  ad- 
dressed by  no  advocate  of  any  other  candidate  than 
Mr.  Seward,  had  deliberately  undertaken  to  defeat 
the  scheme  by  talking  against  time,  till  the  trains 
that  were  to  carry  his  auditors  to  their  homes  be- 
yond the  city  should  be  ready  for  the  last  departure 
of  that  date  ;  and  who,  in  defiance  of  oft-repeated  calls 
for  Hon.  James  W.  Nye,  who  was  to  dedicate  the 
entire  evening  to  his  friend  Seward,  held  the  platform 
till  midnight  approached  and  the  twelve  thousand 
early  listeners  had  palpably  dwindled  to  less  than 
one  thousand.  It  is,  however,  due  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  say  that  he  made  no  reference  to  this  incident  on 
that  evening,  and  that  it  was  not  until  I  had  come 
to  be  an  habitue  of  the  Executive  Chamber  that  I 
heard  him  recount  the  story  of  the  wigwam  meet- 
ing as  it  had  come  to  him.  Graver  matters  now 
engaged  him.  The  president  of  the  Convention, 
and  the  chairman  of  each  delegation,  or  a  substitute 
for  him,  in  which  latter  capacity  I  served,  had  called 
to  notify  him  of  his  nomination,  and  to  present  to 
him  the  letter  which  had  been  prepared,  and  which 
would  inform  him  of  the  nomination,  together  with 
the  platform,  resolutions  and  sentiments  which  the 
Convention  had  adopted. 

It  was  a  beautiful  evening  in  May.  The  train 
bearing  the  Committee,  and  a  number  of  distin- 
guished gentlemen  who  accompanied  them,  arrived  at 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY. 


257 


Springfield  shortly  before  sunset,  and,  after  a  couple 
of  hours  devoted  to  refreshment  and  such  rest  as 
might  be  found  in  the  midst  of  so  excited  a  people, 
the  delegates  repaired  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  home  for  the 
purpose  of  discharging  the  duty  with  which  they  had 
been  intrusted.  Having  entered  the  room  desig- 
nated, the  members  of  the  Committee,  and  the  dis- 
tinguished men  by  whom  they  were  accompanied, 
ranged  themselves  around  three  sides  of  the  room. 
Among  them  were  many  men  of  national  importance, 
including  Hon.  George  Ashman,  who  had  presided 
over  the  Convention  and  had  been  the  life-long 
friend  of  Daniel  Webster.  Through  a  vista  of  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  I  vividly  recall  the 
appearance  of  Governor  Morgan  of  New  York,  and 
of  the  venerable  Francis  P.  Blair,  who  had  so  lone 
edited  the  Globe,  the  organ  of  Jackson's  adminis- 
tration ;  of  Hon.  Gideon  Welles  of  Connecticut, 
who  was  to  serve  with  honor  throughout  the  war  as 
Secretary  of  the  Navy;  of  Hon.  David  K.  Cartter,  of 
Congressional  fame,  subsequently  in  the  diplomatic 
service  of  the  government,  and  now  Chief  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  District  of  Columbia  ;  of 
John  A.  Andrew,  who  is  immortal  in  history  as  the 
great  War  Governor  of  Massachusetts  ;  and  of  Will- 
iam M.  Evarts,  who,  having  in  the  name  of  New 
York  nominated  William  H.  Seward  to  the  Conven- 
tion, at  the  appropriate  moment  after  Mr.  Lincoln's 
17 


258  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

nomination  by  a  majority  of  the  Convention,  moved 
that  the  nomination  be  made  unanimous,  and  many 
others  no  less  worthy  of  special  designation. 

Mr.  Lincoln  assumed  his  position  in  the  back  part 
of  the  room,  and  Mr.  Ashman,  advancing  a  few  paces, 
briefly  announced  the  purpose  of  our  visit  and 
delivered  the  letter  containing  the  platform,  etc. 
While  Mr.  Ashman  spoke,  Mr.  Lincoln's  form  and 
features  seemed  to  be  immovable  ;  his  frame  was 
slightly  bent,  and  his  face  downcast  and  absolutely 
void  of  expression.  It  was  evident  that  the  voice 
which  addressed  him  was  receiving  his  exclusive 
attention.  He  had  no  eye  nor  ear  for  any  other 
object,  and  as  I  contemplated  his  tall,  spare  figure,  I 
remembered  that  of  Henry  Clay,  to  whom  I  noticed 
a  more  than  passing  resemblance ;  and  that  of  Gen- 
eral Jackson,  as  I  had  seen  him  in  1832,  forced  itself 
upon  my  memory.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the 
conclusion  of  Mr.  Ashman's  few  sentences,  that  I 
beheld  the  being,  upon  whose  rough  casket  I  had 
been  gazing.  The  bowed  head  rose  as  by  an  elec- 
tric movement,  the  broad  mouth,  which  had  been  so 
firmly  drawn  together,  opened  with  a  genial  smile, 
and  the  eyes,  that  had  been  shaded,  beamed  with 
intelligence  and  the  exhilaration  of  the  occasion. 
The  few  words,  in  which  fitting  response  to  Mr. 
Ashman's  address  was  made,  flowed  in  a  pleasant 
voice,  and,  though  without  marked  emphasis,   each 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  259 

syllable  was  uttered  with  perfect  clearness.  As  in 
conclusion  he  said,  "  Now  I  will  not  longer  defer  the 
pleasure  of  taking  you,  and  each  of  you,  by  the 
hand,"  Mr.  Lincoln  joined  Mr.  Ashman,  and  ap- 
proached the  Hon.  E.  D.  Morgan,  who  was  Gover- 
nor of  the  Empire  State,  Chairman  of  the  Republi- 
can Executive  Committee,  and  the  most  commandino- 
figure  of  the  visiting  party.  Accident  had  placed 
me  at  the  left  hand  of  the  Governor,  who  was 
not  only  not  gifted  as  a  conversationalist  but  was 
eminently  taciturn,  and  made  no  audible  response 
to  the  cordial  welcome  with  which  he  had  been 
greeted.  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  if  determined  to  elicit  a 
colloquy,  said,  "  Pray,  Governor,  how  tall  may  you 
be?"  "  Nearly  six  feet  three,"  said  the  brawny  and 
distinguished  man,  who  relapsed  into  silence,  and 
was  thus  likely  to  embarrass  his  eager  interlocutor. 
But,  interposing,  I  somewhat  boisterously  exclaimed: 
"And  pray,  Mr.  Lincoln,  how  tall  may  you  be?" 
"Six  feet  four"  said  he.  At  hearing  which  I  bowed 
profoundly,  saying  :  "  Pennsylvania  bows  humbly 
before  New  York,  but  still  more  humbly  before 
Illinois.  Mr.  Lincoln,  is  it  not  curious  that  I, 
who  for  the  last  twelve  years  have  yearned  for  a 
president  to  whom  I  might  look  up,  should  have 
found  one  here  in  a  State  where  so  many  people 
believe  they  grow  nothing  but  'Little  Giants?' 
(The    popular   sobriquet  of    Stephen  A.   Douglas.) 


26o  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

A  peal  of  laughter  greeted  this  interjection.  The 
ice  was  broken,  A  free  flow  of  chat  and  chaff  per- 
vaded the  room,  and  before  the  company  dispersed, 
every  guest  had  an  opportunity  for  a  pleasant  ex- 
change of  words  with  the  whilom  rail-splitter,  Abra- 
ham  Lincoln. 

11. 

Our  next  interview  occurred  early  in  August. 
Frank  P.  Blair,  Jr.,  had  accepted  the  Republican 
nomination  for  Congress  in  one  of  the  St.  Louis 
districts,  and  in  pursuance  of  a  promise  given  his 
friends  at  Chicago,  I  opened  a  campaign  in  that  city 
in  his  behalf  in  the  latter  part  of  July.  Returning 
thence,  I  fulfilled  a  promise  exacted  from  me  by  Mr. 
Lincbln  before  we  parted  in  May,  and  passed  a  day 
at  Springfield.  Our  intercourse  during  this  visit 
convinced  me  that  a  desire  to  know  all  that  could 
be  learned  on  any  subject  that  challenged  his  inves- 
tigation was  the  dominant  element  of  his  intellect- 
ual character  and  the  source  of  his  leadership  among 
men.  His  knowledge,  chiefly  acquired  after  his 
nomination,  of  the  men  who  held  or  aspired  to  hold 
leadership  in  Pennsylvania,  and  in  many  cases  of 
men  whose  influence  was  limited  to  minor  subdivi- 
sions of  the  State,  astonished  me.  Nor  was  he 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  opposition  to  Democ- 
racy in  Pennsylvania  was  not,  as  in  Illinois,  through- 


BV    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  26 1 

out  New  England,  in  the  north-west  generally,  a  co- 
herent body.  He  knew,  too,  that  the  questipns,  the 
subtlety  and  power  of  which  had  divided  the  vote  of 
the  opposition  to  the  Democracy  in  Pennsylvania, 
and  by  losing  the  State  to  P>emont  had  made  the 
election  of  Buchanan  possible  in  1856,  had  not  been 
definitely  settled  ;  and  that  that  opposition  even  now 
was  a  compromise  or  armed  neutrality  between  the 
Republican  and  the  American  parties,  and  was  known 
in  and  about  Philadelphia  as  the  People's  Party. 
This  was  the  title  by  which  the  delegates  from  Phila- 
delphia to  the  Chicago  Convention  had  been  known. 
Mr.  Lincoln  felt  that  he  was  more  than  the  candi- 
date for  the  first  office  in  the  gift  of  the  American 
people,  and  there  seemed  to  him  to  be  something 
repugnant  in  the  discussion  of  that  selfish  aspect  of 
his  position.  He  evidently  thought  of  himself  as 
the  accepted  representative  of  Republican  principles, 
and  felt  that  he  had  been  charged  with  the  duty 
of  securing,  if  possible,  their  triumph,  and  of  giving 
his  countrymen  whatever  blessings  these  principles 
might  be  capable  of  producing.  He  knew  that  the 
smoldering  conflict  of  sentiment  might  be  fanned 
into  flame  if  discontent  should  be  widely  generated 
by  local  nominations  or  other  causes  affecting  leg- 
islative, senatorial,  or  Congressional  districts.  He 
therefore  attached  no  value  to  the  mere  knowledge 
of  the  names  or  geographical  relations  of  men.     To 


262  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  IINCOLN 

name  a  man  whose  affiliations  he  did  not  know,  was 
Hke  any  other  fact  in  nature  which,  by  reason  of  his 
lack  of  knowledge  of  its  relations,  seemed  to  exist  in 
isolation  ;  what  he  wanted  to  know  was  the  relations 
of  men  to  opinion,  to  men  of  influence,  and  to  organ- 
izations social  or  political.  Earnest  contests  in  be- 
half of  gentlemen  for  positions  in  his  Cabinet  were 
already  in  motion.  How  far  might  this  question 
affect  the  harmony  of  the  party,  and  the  popular 
vote  of  the  State  ?  "  You  told  our  people  here  at 
the  State-house,"  said  he,  "  on  the  night  you  visited 
me  with  the  committee  from  the  Convention,  that  I 
would  carry  your  State  by  a  larger  majority  even 
than  it  had  given  '  Old  Hickory,'  which  was  the 
largest  it  had  ever  recorded,  but  now  and  again  a 
communication  comes  along  which  gives  me  cause 
to  think  your  estimate  may  have  been  much  too 
sanguine.  I  do  not  incline  to  that  opinion  at  pres- 
ent, and  our  conversation  has  satisfied  me  that  you 
form  a  very  accurate  appreciation  of  the  things  of 
which  you  speak.  I  have,  however,  arranged  to 
consider  these  questions  through  the  aid  of  two  old 
friends  whose  judgment  I  can  trust  as  I  cannot  that 
of  any  recent  acquaintance,  and  who  are  in  no  way 
involved  in  any  of  your  local  dissensions.  They  will 
come  to  you  very  shortly,  and  I  wish  you  to  bring 
about  them  as  many  men  of  local  influence  of  all 
shades  of  Republican  opinion  as  you  can,  present- 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  263 

ing  them  as  far  as  you  can  to  individuals  or  small 
groups,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  to  enable  my  two 
friends — each  of  whom  is  a  Judge  Davis — to  reach 
conclusions  after  what  they  shall  regard  as  satisfac- 
tory investigation.  They  are  known  in  Illinois  as  '  big 
Judge  Davis'  and  '  little  Judge  Davis  ; '  but  in  worth 
and  character  they  are  both  large  men,  and  I  want 
them  to  traverse  Pennsylvania  to  the  extent,  at  least, 
of  all  the  disaffected  districts."  Sickness  prevented 
the  "little  Judge"  from  coming,  and  the  note  which 
brought  the  "big  Judge"  to  my  office  some  weeks 
later  was  my  introduction  to  the  Hon.  David  Davis, 
so  well  known  to  the  country  by  his  career  as  an 
independent  Senator  and  a  learned  and  conscientious 
Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 


III. 

An  apparently  unrelated  or  isolated  person  or  fact 
would  have  been  a  perpetual  source  of  annoyance  to 
Mr.  Lincoln.  Why  did  this  occur  ?  Why  is  that 
so?  were  questions  he  propounded  not  only  in  con- 
nection with  matters  of  grave  responsibility,  but  in 
relation  to  the  commonest  affairs  of  life.  There  were 
persons  who  knew  of  Mr.  Lincoln  but  as  a  story- 
teller, and  believed  him  to  be  devoted  to  intercourse 
with  men  who  enjoyed  hearing  and  knew  how  to 
tell  mirth-provoking  stories. 


264  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Of  this  class  was  my  friend,  the  late  John  McDon- 
ough,  a  celebrated  actor,  who  was  an  intensely  par- 
tisan Democrat,  and  had  accepted  the  theory  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  mere  buffoon,  whose  official  du- 
ties were  performed  by  his  Cabinet.  I  may  without 
injustice  to  the  memory  of  a  valued  friend  make 
this  statement,  for  after  the  incident  to  which  I  am 
about  to  refer  he  made  the  utmost  atonement  for 
any  injustice  he  might  have  done  Mr.  Lincoln.  Mr. 
McDonough  was  to  play  an  engagement  at  the  Na- 
tional Theatre,  in  which  he  was  to  appear  as  "  Mrs. 
Pluto,"  in  an  extravaganza  entitled  The  Seven  Sis- 
ters. After  much  persuasion,  he  consented  to  go 
with  me  to  the  White  House  the  evening  preceding 
the  opening  of  his  engagement.  Pursuant  to  prom- 
ise he  called  at  my  rooms,  and  found  with  me  Rev. 
Benj.  R.  Miller,  a  devoted  Wesleyan,  and  chaplain 
of  the  119th  Pennsylvania  Volunteers,  who  had  pro- 
posed to  devote  the  first  evening  of  a  brief  furlough 
to  a  conference  with  his  personal  friend  and  Con- 
gressional representative. 

The  night  was  terribly  stormy,  but  in  spite  of 
wind  and  rain  I  proposed  an  early  start  for  the 
White  House,  the  more  certainly  to  secure  the  in- 
terview I  hoped  to  bring  about.  Thanks  to  the  con- 
dition of  the  weather,  we  found  the  President  alone  ; 
and  disclaiming  any  desire  for  employment  or  pat- 
ronage of  any  kind,  I   said  we  might,  however,  vex 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  265 

him  with  some  problems,  as  we  represented  the  stage, 
the  pulpit,  and  the  forum,  and  introduced  my  friends 
as  "Parson  Miller"  and  ''Mrs.  Pluto."  After  a 
playful  remark  or  two  about  the  possibility  of  dis- 
cord in  a  household  that  embraced  "Mrs.  Pluto" 
and  an  orthodox  clergyman,  the  President  turned  to 
the  chaplain  and  created  not  a  little  surprise  on  the 
part  of  my  friends,  showing  that  it  was  not  neces- 
sary for  him  to  inquire  from  what  corps  a  represent- 
ative of  the  119th  Pennsylvania  came,  by  asking 
about  the  condition  of  certain  officers  and  bodies  of 
troops  of  whom  the  chaplain  of  a  regiment  in  their 
division  would  probably  be  able  to  tell  him. 

Having  thus  for  the  present  disposed  of  the  chap- 
lain, Mr.  Lincoln  turned  to  Mr.  McDonough,  who 
seemed  lost  in  contemplation  of  the  grave  and  dig- 
nified man  who,  despite  the  cares  of  his  great  office, 
was  so  easy  in  social  intercourse,  and  said,  "  I  am 
very  glad  to  meet  you,  Mr.  McDonough,  and  am 
grateful  to  Kelley  for  bringing  you  in  so  early,  for  I 
want  you  to  tell  me  something  about  Shakespeare's 
plays  as  they  are  constructed  for  the  stage.  You 
can  imagine  that  I  do  not  get  much  time  to  study 
such  matters,  but  I  recently  had  a  couple  of  talks 
with  Hackett — Baron  Hackett,  as  they  call  him — 
who  is  famous  as  Jack  Falstaff,  but  from  whom  I 
elicited  few  satisfactory  replies,  though  I  probed  him 
with  a  good  many  questions." 


2  66  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Mr.  McDonough  avowed  his  willingness  to  give 
the  President  any  information  in  his  possession,  but 
protested  that  he  feared  he  would  not  succeed 
where  his  friend  Hackett  had  failed.  "  Well,  I 
don't  know,"  said  the  President,  "  for  Hackett's  lack 
of  information  impressed  me  with  a  doubt  as  to 
whether  he  had  ever  studied  Shakespeare's  text,  or 
had  not  been  content  with  the  acting  edition  of  his 
plays."  He  arose,  went  to  a  shelf  not  far  from  his 
table,  and  having  taken  down  a  well-thumbed  vol- 
ume of  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare,  resumed  his  seat, 
arranged  his  glasses,  and  having  turned  to  Henry 
VI.  and  read  with  fine  discrimination  an  extended 
passage,  said,  "  Mr.  McDonough,  can  you  tell  me 
why  those  lines  are  omitted  from  the  acting  play? 
There  is  nothing  I  have  read  in  Shakespeare,  cer- 
tainly nothing  in  Henry  VI.  or  the  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,  that  surpasses  its  wit  and  humor."  The 
actor  suggested  the  breadth  of  its  humor  as  the  only 
reason  he  could  assign  for  its  omission,  but  thought- 
fully added  that  it  was  possible  that  if  the  lines  were 
spoken  they  would  require  the  rendition  of  another 
or  other  passages  which  might  be  objectionable. 

"Your  last  suggestion,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "carries 
with  it  greater  weight  than  anything  Mr.  Hackett 
suggested,  but  the  first  is  no  reason  at  all ; "  and  after 
reading  another  passage,  he  said,  "  This  is  not  with- 
held, and  where  it  passes  current  there  can  be  no 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  267 

reason  for  withholding  the  other."  But,  as  if  feeling 
the  impropriety  of  preferring  the  player  to  the  par- 
son, he  turned  to  the  chaplain  and  said:  "From  your 
calling  it  is  probable  you  do  not  know  that  the  act- 
ing plays  which  people  crowd  to  hear  are  not  always 
those  planned  by  their  reputed  authors.  Thus,  take 
the  stage  edition  of  Richard  III.  It  opens  with  a 
passage  from  Henry  VI.,  after  which  come  portions 
of  Richard  III,  then  another  scene  from  Henry  VI. , 
and  the  finest  soliloquy  in  the  play,  if  we  may  judge 
from  the  many  quotations  it  furnishes,  and  the  fre- 
quency with  which  it  is  heard  in  amateur  exhibitions, 
was  never  seen  by  Shakespeare,  but  was  written,  was 
it  not,  Mr.  McDonough,  after  his  death,  by  Colley 
Gibber?" 

Having  disposed,  for  the  present,  of  questions  re- 
lating to  the  stage  editions  of  the  plays,  he  recurred 
to  his  standard  copy,  and,  to  the  evident  surprise  of 
Mr.  McDonough,  read  or  repeated  from  memory  ex- 
tracts from  several  of  the  plays,  some  of  which  em- 
braced a  number  of  lines. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  poeti- 
cal studies  had  been  confined  to  his  plays.  He 
interspersed  his  remarks  with  extracts  striking 
from  their  similarity  to,  or  contrast  with,  something 
of  Shakespeare's,  from  Byron,  Rogers,  Campbell, 
Moore,  and  other  English  poets. 

The  time  had  come   for  our  departure,  and  Mr. 


268  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

McDonough  had  thanked  the  President  warmly  for 
the  pleasure  he  had  afforded  him,  and  we  were  about 
to  take  our  leave,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  said  :  "  But 
there  is  much  genuine  poetry  floating  about  anony- 
mously. There  is  one  such  poem  that  is  my  almost 
constant  companion ;  indeed,  I  may  say  it  is  continu- 
ally present  with  me,  as  it  crosses  my  mind  whenever 
I  have  relief  from  anxiety.  It  opens  thus" — and  he 
proceeded  to  recite  the  opening  and  several  suc- 
ceeding stanzas,  though  he  did  not  repeat  the  entire 
poem.  My  readers  will,  I  am  sure,  thank  me  for 
inserting  it  in  full,  as  it  was  noted  from  his  lips  by 
Mr.  F.  B.  Carpenter  during  his  stay  at  the  White 
House,  and  appears  in  his  charming  volume,  The 
Inner  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Oh  !  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ? 
Like  a  swift-fleeting  meteor,  a  fast-flying  cloud, 
A  flash  of  the  lightning,  a  break  of  the  wave, 
He  passes  from  life  to  his  rest  in  the  grave. 

The  leaves  of  the  oak  and  the  willow  shall  fade, 
Be  scattered  around  and  together  be  laid  ; 
And  the  young  and  the  old,  and  the  low  and  the  high, 
Shall  molder  to  dust,  and  together  shall  lie. 

The  infant,  the  mother  attended  and  loved  ; 
The  mother, that  infant's  affection  who  proved  ; 
The  husband, that  mother  and  infant  who  blessed — 
Each,  all  are  away  in  their  dwellings  of  rest. 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  269 

The  hand  of  the  king  that  the  scepter  hath  borne, 
The  brow  of  the  priest  that  the  miter  hath  worn, 
The  eye  of  the  sage   and  the  heart  of  the  brave, 
Are  hidden  and  lost  in  the  depths  of  the  grave. 

The  peasant,  whose  lot  was  to  sow  and  to  reap, 
The  herdsman,  who  climbed  with  his  goats  up  the  steep, 
The  beggar,  who  wandered  in  search  of  his  bread, 
Have  faded  away  like  the  grass  that  we  tread. 

So  the  multitude  goes,  like  the  flower  or  weed, 
That  withers  away  to  let  others  succeed  ; 
So  the  multitude  comes — even  those  we  behold — 
To  repeat  every  tale  that  has  often  been  told. 

For  we  are  the  same  our  fathers  have  been  ; 
We  see  the  same  sights  our  fathers  have  seen  ; 
We  drink  the  same  stream,  we  view  the  same  sun, 
And  run  the  same  course  our  fathers  have  run. 

The  thoughts  we  are  thinking,  our  fathers  would  think  ; 
From  the  death  we  are  shrinking, our  fathers  would  shrink  ; 
To  the  life  we  are  clinging,  they  also  would  cling  ; 
But  it  speeds  from  us  all  like  a  bird  on  the  wing. 

They  loved — but  the  story  we  cannot  unfold  ; 
They  scorned — but  the  heart  of  the  haughty  is  cold  ; 
They  grieved — but  no  wail  from  their  slumber  will  come  ; 
They  joyed — but  the  tongue  of  their  gladness  is  done. 

They  died — ay,  they  died— we  things,  that  are  now. 
That  walk  on  the  turf  that  lies  o'er  their  brow. 
And  make  in  their  dwellings  a  transient  abode, 
Meet  the  things  that  they  met  on  their  pilgrimage  road. 


270  REMINISCENCES  OE  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Yea,  hope  and  despondency,  pleasure  and  pain, 
Are  mingled  together  in  sunshine  and  rain  ; 
And  the  smile  and  the  tear,  the  song  and  the  dirge, 
Still  follow  each  other  like  surge  upon  surge. 

'Tis  the  wink  of  an  eye,  'tis  the  draught  of  a  breath — 
From  the  blossom  of  health  to  the  paleness  of  death, 
•   From  gilded  saloon  to  the  bier  and  the  shroud  ; 
Oh  !  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ? 

It  was  now  past  eleven  o'clock.  We  had  been 
with  him  more  than  four  hours,  and  when  I  ex- 
pressed regret  for  the  thoughtlessness  which  had  de- 
tained him  so  long,  he  responded  :  "  Kelley,  I  assure 
your  friends  that  in  bringing  them  here  this  evening 
you  have  given  me  the  benefit  of  a  long  holiday. 
I  have  not  enjoyed  such  a  season  of  literary  recrea- 
tion since  I  entered  the  White  House,  and  I  feel 
that  a  long  and  pleasant  interval  has  passed  since  I 
closed  my  routine  work  this  afternoon.  Before  you 
go  I  want  to  make  a  request  of  each  of  you,  and 
exact  a  promise  that  you  will  grant  it  if  it  shall 
ever  happen  that  you  can  do  so.  The  little  poem 
I  just  now  brought  to  your  notice  is  truly  anony- 
mous. Its  author  has  been  greatly  my  benefactor, 
and  I  would  be  glad  to  name  him  when  I  speak  of 
his  poem  ;  and  the  request  I  make  of  you  is,  that 
should  you  ever  learn  his  name  and  anything  of  his 
story  you  will  send  it  to  me,  that  I  may  treasure  it 
as  a  memorial  of  a  dear  friend." 


BV    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  2"]! 


IV. 


The  result  of  the  October  election  of  1862  was 
unsatisfactory  to  the  Republicans  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  they  ascribed  the  reverses  which  had  overtaken 
the  party  to  the  President's  retention  of  McClellan 
as  General-in-Chief,  after  he  had  proven  himself  un- 
willing or  incompetent  to  conduct  an  aggressive 
campaign  against  the  Confederate  army. 

On  the  morning  of  the  third  day  after  that  elec- 
tion I  participated  in  a  memorable  interview  with 
the  President.  My  district  had  been  strongly  con- 
servative, and  my  election  in  i860  was  by  a  plurality 
and  not  by  a  majority  of  the  voters,  the  opposition 
having  divided  their  suffrages  between  a  Democrat 
and  a  nominee  of  the  Bell  and  Everett  party. 
Knowing  for  years,  as  I  had,  McCIellan's  father  and 
uncle,  who  ranked  high  among  Philadelphia's  dis- 
tinguished surgeons  and  physicians,  and  recognizing 
in  his  promotion  a  compliment  to  my  city,  of  which 
he  was  a  native,  I  greeted  with  enthusiasm  his  ap- 
pointment to  a  command  which  brought  him  to 
Washington,  and  took  the  earliest  fitting  opportu- 
nity to  present  my  congratulations  in  person.  That 
was  late  in  July,  but  before  the  1st  of  January  I 
had  taken  my  place  with  those  who  denounced  his 
course  in  selecting  his  intimate  associates  from  the 
ranks  of    those  who  were    most    hostile  to  the  ad- 


272  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ministration  that  had  placed  him  in  command  of  the 
army  which  was  charged  with  the  duty  of  conquer- 
ing embattled  rebellion,  and  in  wasting  the  entire 
summer  and  autumn  in  inaction.  My  revised  esti- 
mate of  his  fitness  for  supreme  command  was  ex- 
pressed without  reserve  at  the  time  of  his  greatest 
popularity.  This  independence  of  judgment  and 
speech  cost  me  the  sympathy  of  many  constituents 
from  whom  I  had  received  most  active  support,  and 
I  was  regarded,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  use  a  bit 
of  Congressional  slang,  as  "a  yearling" — a  man  who 
had  come  to  Congress  to  serve  once  and  never  re- 
turn. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  when  on  the  morning  of 
which  I  have  spoken  I  presented  myself  to  the  Pres- 
ident as  his  first  visitor,  he  advanced  with  extended 
hand  to  greet  me,  exclaiming,  "  Kelley,  you  know 
how  sincerely  I  congratulate  you.  Come,  sit  down 
and  tell  me  how  it  is  that  you,  for  whose  election 
nobody  seemed  to  hope,  are  returned  with  a  good 
majority  at  your  back,  while  so  many  of  our  friends, 
about  whom  there  was  no  doubt,  have  been  badly 
beaten." 

Admitting  that  I  would  have  been  beaten  had  the 
election  occurred  six  months  earlier,  I  said  that  my 
triumph  was  due  to  my  loyalty  to  him  and  his  ad- 
ministration, coupled  with  my  known  independence 
of  both  in  demanding  the  substitution  of  a  fighting 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  2JT, 

general  for  McClellan.  Without  pausing  for  a  re- 
ply, I  continued  :  It  is  the  desire  to  secure  this 
change  that  has  brought  me  here  at  such  an  early 
hour  this  morning.  I  am,  as  you  know,  not  a  sol- 
dier, and  have  rendered  no  military  service,  yet  it 
happens  that,  as  one  of  a  squad  of  emergency  men, 
I  was  in  charge  of  the  spare  guns  and  sick  horses  of 
a  battery  of  regular  artillery  in  a  camp  between 
Hagerstown  and  Sharpsburg,  and  heard  the  fire  of 
musketry  that  opened  the  battle  of  Antietam  in  the 
gray  dawn  of  the  morning ;  that  by  a  detail  from  Dr. 
Smith,  the  Surgeon-General  of  Pennsylvania,  I  had 
been  the  bearer  of  a  communication  to  General  Rey- 
nolds touching  the  reserves,  or  "Home  Guard" 
of  Philadelphia,  who,  having  volunteered  as  "emer- 
gency men  "  for  duty  within  our  State,  had,  without 
rest,  drill,  or  other  preparation  for  field  duty,  been 
ordered  to  the  front  immediately  on  their  arrival  at 
the  State  line  ;  and  that  I  could  therefore  tell  him, 
from  personal  observation,  that  the  sacrifices  of  that 
long  day's  fighting  had  been  surrendered  by  McClel- 
lan, who,  while  it  was  not  only  daylight,  but  while 
the  sun  was  still  high  and  Fitz-John  Porter's  corps 
was  in  reserve,  and  other  troops  were  comparatively 
fresh,  had  silenced  his  guns,  and  permitted  Lee  to 
withdraw  his  forces  from  a  cul-de-sac,  in  which  they 
were  practically  imprisoned.  At  this  moment  we 
were  interrupted  by  a  messenger  with  a  card,  which 

l8 


274  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

proved  to  be  that  of  my  colleague  from  the  Gettys- 
burg district,  Hon.  Edward  McPherson.  He  had 
just  been  beaten  in  what  had  been  regarded  as  a 
certain  district.  With  the  most  sympathetic  man- 
ner, Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  advanced  toward  the 
threshold  to  meet  him,  asked  "  how  he  accounted  for 
so  unhappy  and  so  unexpected  a  result  in  his  dis- 
trict." I  had  not  conversed  with  Mr.  McPherson 
on  the  subject,  but  knew  that  his  friends  were  out- 
spoken in  charging  the  loss  of  the  district  to  the 
President ;  and  when,  with  the  gentleness  of  his 
nature,  he  was  suggesting  specious  causes  for  the 
sweeping  reverse,  I  interrupted  him  by  saying : 
"  Mr.  President,  my  colleague  is  not  treating  you 
frankly;  his  friends  hold  you  responsible  for  his  de- 
feat." "  If  that  be  true,"  rejoined  the  President,  "  I 
thank  you  for  the  suggestion  ;"  and  turning  to  Mc- 
Pherson, said  :  "  Tell  me  frankly  what  cost  us  your 
district.  If  ever  there  was  an  occasion  when  a  man 
should  speak  with  perfect  candor  to  another  it  is 
now,  when  I  apply  to  you  for  information  that  may 
guide  my  course  in  grave  national  matters."  "Well, 
Mr.  President,"  said  McPherson,  "  I  will  tell  you 
frankly  what  our  friends  say.  They  charge  the  de- 
feat to  the  general  tardiness  in  military  movements, 
which  result,  as  they  believe,  from  McClellan's  un- 
fitness for  command.  The  enforcement  of  the  draft 
occurred   during  the   campaign,  and  of    course   our 


BY    WILLIAM  D.   KELLEY.  275 

political  enemies  made  a  great  deal  of  capital  out 
of  it  ;  but,  in  my  judgment,  not  enough  to  change  the 
complexion  of  the  district.  But  the  persistent  re- 
fusal of  McClellan  and  his  engineers  to  protect  our 
borders  from  invasion,  by  the  construction  of  works 
to  command  the  fords  of  the  Potomac,  had  a  very 
positive  effect ;  for,  as  a  result  of  the  neglect  of  this 
duty,  Stuart,  with  his  cavalry,  raided  through  my  dis- 
trict on  the  Friday  and  Saturday  before  the  election  ; 
paroled  sick  and  wounded  Union  soldiers  whom  he 
found  in  hospital  at  Chambersburg  ;  burnt  the  rail- 
road station,  machine  shops,  and  several  trains  of 
loaded  cars,  and  destroyed  thousands  of  muskets  and 
large  quantities  of  army  clothing." 

The  President  was  not  permitted  to  reply  to  these 
suo'orestions,  for  the  main  door  on  the  broad  landinof 
at  the  head  of  the  stairs  opened  without  knock  or 
other  premonition,  and  the  sturdy  form  of  Hon.  J. 
K.  Moorhead,  who  represented  the  Pittsburg  district, 
advanced  toward  the  President,  who  met  him  with 
extended  hand,  saying,  "  And  what  word  do  you 
bring,  Moorhead  ;  you,  at  any  rate,  were  not  de- 
feated ?"  "  No,"  exclaimed  Moorhead,  in  a  voice  at 
a  high  pitch  and  tremulous  with  nervous  excitement — 
"  no,  Mr.  President,  but  I  am  sorry  to  say  it  was  not 
your  fault  that  we  were  not  all  beaten  ; "  and  con- 
tinuing in  the  same  nervous  manner  he  proceeded  to 
the  performance  of  a  duty  which,  knowing  the  gentle- 


2/6  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ness  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  nature,  he  felt  to  be  a  most  un- 
gracious one,  and  said  :  "  Mr.  President,  I  came  as 
far  as  Harrisburg  yesterday,  and  passed  the  evening 
with  a  number  of  the  best  and  most  influential  men 
of  our  State,  including  some  of  those  who  have  been 
your  most  earnest  supporters,  and  they  charged  me 
to  tell  you  that  when  one  of  them  said,  '  he  would  be 
glad  to  hear  some  morning  that  you  had  been  found 
hanging  from  the  post  of  a  lamp  at  the  door  of  the 
White  House,'  others  approved  the  expression." 

The  manner  of  the  President  changed.  He  was 
perfectly  calm,  and  in  a  subdued  voice  said  :  "  You 
need  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  that  suggestion  has 
been  executed  any  morning  ;  the  violent  preliminaries 
to  such  an  event  would  not  surprise  me.  I  have  done 
things  lately  that  must  be  incomprehensible  to  the 
people,  and  which  cannot  now  be  explained."  I  met 
the  President's  admission  of  such  a  possibility  with 
what,  as  I  remember  it  at  this  distance  of  time,  seems 
to  me  to  have  been  a  most  indecorous  display  of 
earnestness.  I  could  not  retain  my  seat,  and  pacing 
the  floor  with  quick  and  violent  step,  begged  him  to 
permit  no  other  person  to  hear  that  he  had  ever 
entertained  the  thought  of  so  fearful  a  possibility.  I 
charged  upon  him  a  lack  of  self-appreciation,  and  said 
"  he  had  but  to  assert  his  position  by  showing  himself 
master  of  the  military  department,  as  he  did  of  all 
other  departments  of  the  administration,  to  command 


BY  WILLIAM  D.   KELLEY.  277 

a  following  in  the  Northern  States  such  as  even 
Andrew  Jackson  had  never  had  ;  that  he  enjoyed  a 
greater  share  of  the  personal  affection  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  than  any  public  man  but  Washington  had 
done  ;  that  within  twenty-four  hours  of  the  time  it 
should  come  to  be  known  that  he  had  put  a  soldier 
in  McClellan's  place,  he  would  find  that  he  could 
command  the  moral,  social,  and  financial  resources  of 
the  country  as  no  other  President  had  done  ;"  to  all 
of  which,  after  they  had  recovered  from  their  surprise 
at  my  impulsive  outburst,  my  colleagues  assented. 
The  kind-hearted  President,  who  had  not  been  of- 
fended by  my  manner,  turned  to  me  and  said  :  "  Kel- 
ley,  if  it  were  your  duty  to  select  a  successor  to  Mc- 
Clellan,  whom  would  you  name  ?  "  I  evaded  a  direct 
reply,  and  said:  "My  advice  to  you,  Mr.  President, 
would  be  to  make  up  your  mind  to  change,  and  to  let 
it  be  known  that  the  loss  of  a  great  battle  would  be 
to  the  general  the  loss  of  his  command,  and  to  go  on 
changing  until  you  find  the  right  man,  though  he 
prove  to  be  a  private  with  a  marshal's  baton  in  his 
knapsack."  "  Well,"  said  he,  "  but  you  are  talking 
about  an  immediate  successor  to  McClellan,  and  I 
ask  you  whom  you  would  name  for  his  position  if 
the  duty  were  yours."  "I  think,  sir,"  said  I,  "my 
judgment  would  incline  to  Hooker,  whose  sobriquet 
of  '  Fighting  Joe  '  would  convey  the  impression  to  the 
impatient    country   that    the    change    meant    '  fight,' 


278  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

which  the  people  would  believe  to  be  synonymous 
with  ultimate  and  early  success."  "  Would  not  Burn- 
side  do  better  ?  "  said  the  President.  "  I  don't  think 
so,"  said  I ;  "  you  know  I  have  great  respect  for  Burn- 
side,  but  he  is  not  known  to  the  country  as  an  ag- 
gressive man,  and  in  that  respect  I  think  Hooker 
would  be  better  in  the  present  conjunction  of  affairs." 
"  I  think,"  said  he,  "  Burnside  would  be  better,  for  he 
is  the  better  housekeeper."  With  uncontrollable  im- 
patience I  exclaimed  with  an  expletive,  which  I  hope 
was  pardoned  elsewhere  as  freely  as  it  was  by  the 
President,  "You  are  not  in  search  of  a  housekeeper 
or  a  hospital  steward,  but  of  a  soldier  who  will  fight, 
and  fight  to  win."  "  I  am  not  so  sure,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln, 
quietly,  "that  we  are  not  in  search  of  a  housekeeper. 
I  tell  you,  Kelley,  the  successful  management  of  an 
army  requires  a  good  deal  of  faithful  housekeeping. 
More  fight  will  be  got  out  of  well-fed  and  well-cared- 
for  soldiers  and  animals  than  can  be  got  out  of  those 
that  are  required  to  make  long  marches  with  empty 
stomachs,  and  whose  strength  and  cheerfulness  are 
impaired  by  the  failure  to  distribute  proper  rations  at 
proper  seasons."  This  was  so  true,  so  kindly,  so 
thoroughly  expressive  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  nature,  that 
it  commanded  unqualified  assent,  and  this  part  of  the 
interview*  closed  with  a  renewal  of  the  joint  sug- 

*  For  supplement  to  this    interview,  see    closing   pages    of    Lincoln   and 
Stanton,  by  Wm  D.  Kelley.     G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 


BV    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  2/9 

gestion  that  change  should  follow  change  until  the 
right  man  had  been  found,  and  the  expression  of  a 
hope  that  the  first  change  would  be  promptly  made. 
The  President's  thoughtful  but  evasive  response  to 
all  of  which  was,  "  We  shall  see  what  we  shall  see." 
What  we  did  see  was  that  on  the  7th  of  November 
Burnside  relieved  McClellan  of  his  command. 

One  evening  when  a  few  gentlemen,  among  whom 
was  Mr.  Seward,  had  met  in  the  Executive  Chamber 
without  special  business,  and  were  talking  of  the  past, 
the  President  said,  "  Seward,  you  never  heard,  did 
you,  how  I  earned  my  first  dollar?"  *'  No,"  said  Mr. 
Seward.  *'  Well,"  replied  he,  "  I  was  about  eighteen 
years  of  age,  and  belonged,  as  you  know,  to  what 
they  call  down  South  the  '  Scrubs  ; '  people  who  do 
not  own  land  and  slaves  are  nobody  there,  but  we  had 
succeeded  in  raising,  chiefly  by  my  labor,  sufficient 
produce  as  I  thought  to  justify  me  in  taking  it  down 
the  river  to  sell.  After  much  persuasion  I  had  got 
the  consent  of  my  mother  to  go,  and  had  constructed 
a  flat  boat,  large  enough  to  take  the  few  barrels  of 
things  we  had  gathered  down  to  New  Orleans.  A 
steamer  was  going  down  the  river.  We  have,  you 
know,  no  wharves  on  the  Western  streams,  and  the 
custom  was,  if  passengers  were  at  any  of  the  land- 
ings, they  were  to  go  out  in  a  boat,  the  steamer  stop- 
ping and  taking  them  on  board.  I  was  contemplat- 
ing my   new   boat,  and  wondering  whether  I   could 


28o  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN    ' 

make  it  stronger  or  improve  it  in  any  part,  when  two 
men,  with  trunks,  came  down  to  the  shore  in  car- 
riages, and  looking  at  the  different  boats,  singled  out 
mine,  and  asked,  '  Who  owns  this  ? '  I  answered, 
modestly,  '  I  do.'  'Will  you,'  said  one  of  them,  'take 
us  and  our  trunks  out  to  the  steamer? '  '  Certainly,' 
said  I.  I  was  very  glad  to  have  the  chance  of  earn- 
ing something,  and  supposed  that  each  of  them  would 
give  me  a  couple  of  bits.  The  trunks  were  put  on 
my  boat,  the  passengers  seated  themselves  on  them, 
and  I  sculled  them  out  to  the  steamer.  They  got  on 
board,  and  I  lifted  their  trunks  and  put  them  on  the 
deck.  The  steamer  was  about  to  put  on  steam  again, 
when  I  called  out,  'You  have  forgotten  to  pay  me.' 
Each  of  them  took  from  his  pocket  a  silver  half-dollar 
and  threw  it  on  the  bottom  of  my  boat.  I  could 
scarcely  believe  my  eyes  as  I  picked  up  the  money. 
You  may  think  it  was  a  very  little  thing,  and  in  these 
days  it  seems  to  me  like  a  trifle,  but  it  was  a  most 
important  incident  in  my  life.  I  could  scarcely  credit 
that  I,  the  poor  boy,  had  earned  a  dollar  in  less  than 
a  day ;  that  by  honest  work  I  had  earned  a  dollar. 
The  world  seemed  wider  and  fairer  before  me  ;  I  was 
a  more  hopeful  and  thoughtful  boy  from  that  time." 


BY    WILLIAM  D.   KELLEY.  281 


Early  in  June,  1802,  in  response  to  an  invitation 
from  Senator  Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania,  to  join  him 
and  Senator  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  in  accom- 
panying a  deputation  of  Pennsylvanians  to  the 
Executive  Chamber,  I  repaired  to  the  anteroom, 
where  I  found  the  Senators  and  a  delegation  of 
earnest  people,  who  represented  an  independent 
religious  organization  which  attached  a  higher  de- 
gree of  importance  to  the  purity  of  life  and  unselfish 
conduct  than  to  the  acceptance  of  theological  dog- 
mas, and  who  had  been  charged  by  the  Yearly  Meet- 
ing of  their  association  to  present  a  "minute"  to 
the  President  on  the  subject  of  slavery  and  the  duty 
of  immediate  emancipation.  The  minute  had,  in 
accordance  with  the  usage  of  Friends,  been  carefully 
inscribed,  and  was  in  the  hands  of  a  member  of  the 
delegation  who  would  read  it  distinctly. 

At  the  appointed  time,  a  messenger  notified  the 
Senators  that  the  President  was  ready  to  receive  the 
party.  We  who  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  felt  instinctively, 
on  coming  into  his  presence,  that  the  visit  was  in- 
opportune. The  air  was  full  of  evil  rumors  from 
the  Peninsula,  and  the  President  had  evidently 
passed  a  night  of  anxiety.  He,  however,  gave  the 
delegation  a  cordial,   though    brief,   greeting.      The 


282  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

guests,  who  were  all  strangers  to  the  President,  did 
not  perceive,  as  others  did,  an  unusual  air  of  impa- 
tience in  his  manner,  as  he  announced  that  he  was 
ready  to  hear  from  the  Friends. 

The  delegation  charged  with  the  presentation  of 
the  minute  advanced,  and  proceeded  to  read  the 
contents  of  the  attested  document. 

The  President  did  not  seem  to  recognize  the  fact 
that  in  reading  it  he  performed  a  ministerial  func- 
tion, and  apparently  held  him  responsible  for  what 
the  Yearly  Meeting  had  prepared.  I  had  not  at- 
tempted to  charge  my  memory  with  the  substance 
of  the  minute.  It,  however,  soon  appeared  that  it 
had  reminded  the  President  that,  while  he  was  yet 
a  citizen,  he  had  said,  "  I  believe  that  this  govern- 
ment cannot  permanently  endure  half  slave  and 
half  free,"  and  from  this  disjointed  quotation  had 
deduced  a  suggestion  of  his  failure  to  perform  his 
duty  as  he  had  then  seen  it.  That  he  was  sharply 
aggrieved  by  something  that  was  said  became  ap- 
parent to  every  one. 

Having  finished  it,  the  reader  handed  the  scroll  to 
the  President,  who,  after  a  few  unimportant  remarks, 
straightened  himself  to  his  full  height,  and,  with  an 
asperity  of  manner  of  which  he  had  not  previously 
seemed  to  be  capable,  said  :  "  It  is  true  that  on  the 
17th  of  June,  1858,  I  said,  '  I  believe  that  this  gov- 
ernment cannot  permanently  endure  half  slave  and 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  283 

half  free,'  but  I  said  it  in  connection  with  other 
things,  from  which  it  should  not  have  been  separated 
in  an  address  discussing  moral  obligations  ;  for  this 
is  a  case  in  which  the  repetition  of  half  a  truth,  in 
connection  with  the  remark  just  read,  produces  the 
effect  of  a  whole  falsehood.  What  I  did  say  was  : 
'  If  we  could  first  know  where  we  are  and  whither  we 
are  tending,  we  could  better  judge  what  to  do  and 
how  to  do  it.  We  are  now  far  into  the  fifth  year 
since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed  object 
and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  the  slav- 
ery agitation.  Under  the  operation  of  that  policy, 
that  agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but  has  con- 
stantly augmented.  In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease 
until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached  and  passed. 
"A  house,  divided  against  itself,  cannot  stand."  I 
believe  that  this  government  cannot  permanently 
endure  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the 
Union  to  be  dissolved — I  do  not  expect  the  house 
to  fall — but  I  do  expect  that  it  will  cease  to  be 
divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the 
other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest 
the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public 
mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of 
ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  for- 
ward till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States, 
old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South.' "  * 

*  In  this  speech  to  the   Republican  Staie  Convention  at  Springfield,  111., 


284  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

VI. 

A  few  days  after  the  interview  with  the  Progres- 
sive Friends,  what  the  world  calls  a  "  Quaker 
Preacher"  was  presented  to  the  President,  and  after 
some  little  general  conversation,  begged  permission 
to  detain  him  while  she  bore  a  brief  testimony  in 
behalf  of  the  slave,  to  which,  with  an  air  of  ill-sub- 
dued impatience,  he  replied,  "  I  will  hear  the 
Friend." 

The  testimony  was  ostensibly  a  plea  in  behalf  of 
the  slave,  but  it  was  evidently  intended  as  an  indi- 
rect appeal  for  the  fuller  recognition  of  woman  in 
governmental  matters  ;  for  the  speaker  reminded 
the  President  that,  after  the  children  of  Israel  had 
been  terribly  wronged  and  oppressed  for  twenty 
years,  and  had  cried  out  unto  the  Lord  for  deliver- 
ance, He  had  appointed  Deborah,  w^ho  was  a  proph- 
etess, and  judged  Israel  at  that  time,  to  overthrow 
their  oppressors  and  emancipate  them,  and  that 
Deborah  had  gone  up  against  Sisera,  whom  the 
Lord  discomfited,  with  all  his  troops  and  all  his 
hosts,  so  that  Sisera  leaped  down  off  his  chariot  and 
fled  away  on  his  feet.  Having  elaborated  this 
biblical  example,  the  speaker  assumed  that  the 
President  was,  as  Deborah  had  been,  the  appointed 


June  17,  185S,  many  have  found  the  original  of  Mr.  Seward's  famous  irrepress- 
ible conflict  speech  at  Rochester  on  the  25th  of  the  following  October. 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  285 

minister  of  the  Lord,  and  proceeded  to  tell  him  that 
it  was  his  duty  to  follow  the  example  of  Deborah, 
and  forthwith  abolish  slavery,  and  establish  freedom 
throughout  the  land,  as  the  Lord  had  appointed  him 
to  do. 

"Has  the  Friend  finished?"  said  the  President, 
as  she  ceased  to  speak.  Having  received  an  affirm- 
ative answer,  he  said  :  "  I  have  neither  time  nor  dis- 
position to  enter  into  discussion  with  the  Friend, 
and  end  this  occasion  by  suggesting  for  her  consid- 
eration the  question  whether,  if  it  be  true  that  the 
Lord  has  appointed  me  to  do  the  work  she  has  indi- 
cated, it  is  not  probable  that  He  would  have  com- 
municated knowledge  of  the  fact  to  me  as  well  as  to 

her." 

VII. 

Having  called  one  morning  a  little  earlier  than 
usual,  in  the  hope  of  having  a  confidential  interview 
with  the  President,  I  found  the  field  preoccupied  ;  ' 
and  while  I  waited,  Senator  Wilson  entered  the 
chamber,  having  with  him  four  Englishmen  of  ripe 
years  and  dignified  bearing. 

The  President  had  evidently  had  an  early  ap- 
pointment, and  had  not  completed  his  toilet.  He 
was  in  his  slippers,  and  his  pantaloons,  when  he 
crossed  one  knee  over  the  other,  disclosed  the  fact 
that  he  wore  heavy  blue  stockings.  As,  in  the 
etiquette  of  calls  upon  the  Executive,  Senators  take 


286  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

precedence  of  members  of  the  House,  I  found  that 
my  chance  for  anything  Hke  a  private  conversation 
was  at  an  end ;  but  as  I  had  breakfasted  at  the  same 
table  with  the  gentlemen  whom  the  Senator  was 
about  to  present,  I  could  not  avoid  hearing  their 
conversation,  and  I  felt  that  I  would  be  repaid  by 
waiting  for  their  proposed  interview  with  the  Presi- 
dent as  others  would  have  to  do. 

It  was  an  agreeable  surprise  to  learn  that  the  chief, 
of  the  visiting  party  was  Prof.  Goldwin  Smith,  one 
of  the  firmest  of  our  English  friends. 

As  the  President  rose  to  greet  them,  he  was  the 
very  impersonation  of  easy  dignity,  notwithstanding 
the  negligee  of  his  costume  ;  and  with  the  tact  that 
never  deserted  him,  he  opened  the  conversation  with 
an  inquiry  as  to  the  health  of  John  Bright,  whom 
he  said  he  regarded  as  the  friend  of  our  country,  and 
of  freedom  everywhere.  The  visitors  having  been 
seated,  the  magnitude  of  recent  battles  was  referred 
to  by  Prof.  Smith  as  prelim.inary  to  the  question, 
whether  the  enormous  losses  which  were  so  fre- 
quently occurring  would  not  so  impair  the  industrial 
resources  of  the  North  as  to  seriously  affect  the 
prosperity  of  individual  citizens,  and  consequently 
the  revenues  of  the  country.  He  justified  the  ques- 
tion by  proceeding  to  recite  the  number  of  killed, 
wounded  and  missing  reported  after  some  of  the 
great  battles  recently  fought. 


BY    WILLIAM  D.    KELLEY.  2S7 

There  were  two  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  devoted  friends 
who  Hved  in  dread  of  his  little  stories.  Neither  of 
them  was  gifted  with  humor,  and  both  could  under- 
stand his  propositions,  which  were  always  distinct 
and  clean  cut,  without  such  illustrations  as  those  in 
which  he  so  often  indulged,  and  were  chagrined 
whenever  they  were  compelled  to  hear  him  resort  to 
them  in  the  presence  of  distinguished  strangers  or 
on  grave  occasions.  They  were  Senator  Wilson  and 
Mr.  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War  ;  and,  as  Prof.  Smith 
closed  his  statistical  statement,  the  time  came  for 
the  Massachusetts  Senator  to  bite  his  lip,  for  the 
President,  crossing  his  leg-s  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
show  that  his  blue  stockings  were  long  as  well  as 
thick,  said  that  in  settling  such  matters  we  must  re- 
sort to  "  darky  "  arithmetic. 

"  To  darky  arithmetic ! "  exclaimed  the  dignified 
representative  of  the  learning  and  higher  thought  of 
Great  Britain  and  her  American  Dominion,  "  I  did 
not  know,  Mr.  President,  that  you  have  two  systems 
of  arithmetic  ?  " 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  the  President  ;  "I  will  illustrate 
that  point  by  a  little  story  :  Two  young  contra- 
bands, as  we  have  learned  to  call  them,  were  seated 
together,  when  one  said,  'Jim,  do  you  know  'rith- 
metic? 

Meanwhile,  Senator  Wilson's  right  foot  was  play- 
ing a  quick  but  quiet  kind  of  devil's  tattoo.      Had 


288  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

he  known  a  thousand  stories  he  would  not  have  told 
one  of  them  to  Prof.  Smith  and  his  grave-looking 
British  friends  ;  and  he  was  mortified  that  the  Presi- 
dent, who  in  all  essential  things  had  few  superiors 
in  easy  dignity  of  manner,  should  so  inopportunely 
indulge  in  such  frivolity. 

VIII. 

Unconscious  of  the  Senator's  annoyance,  the 
President  proceeded:  "  Jim  answered,  'No;  what  is 
'rithmetic  ? '  '  Well,'  said  the  other,  '  it's  when  you 
add  up  things.  When  you  have  one  and  one,  and 
you  put  them  together,  they  makes  two.  And 
when  you  substracts  things.  When  if  you  have  two 
things,  and  you  takes  one  away,  only  one  remains.' 
'  Is  dat  'rithmetic  ? '  '  Yes.'  '  Well,  'tain't  true  den  ; 
it's  no  good.'  Here  a  dispute  arose,  when  Jim  said  : 
'  Now,  you  s'pose  three  pigeons  sit  on  that  fence, 
and  somebody  shoot  one  of  dem,  do  t'other  two  stay 
dar  ?  I  guess  not,  dey  fhes  away  quicker'n  odder 
feller  falls,'  and.  Professor,  trifling  as  the  story  seems, 
it  illustrates  the  arithmetic  you  must  use  in  estimat- 
ing the  actual  losses  resulting  from  our  great  bat- 
tles. The  statements  you  refer  to  give  the  killed, 
wounded  and  missing  at  the  first  roll-call  after  the 
battle,  which  always  exhibits  a  greatly  exaggerated 
total,  especially  in  the  column  of  missing." 

"  But,  Mr.   President,"  interjected    the    Professor, 


BY    WILLIAM  D.   KELLEY.  289 

"  is  it  not  unfortunate  that  such  should  be  the  case  ; 
for  these  original  reports  go  everywhere,  and  doubt- 
less generally  create  the  impression  which  led  to  my 
inquiry,  whether  you  are  not  proceeding  rapidly 
toward  exhaustion  ?  " 

Admitting  that  it  would    be  better,  in  some    re- 
spects,  if  the  statement  of  losses  should  be  delayed, 
the  President  said  he  did  not  think  it  would  com- 
pensate for  possible  evil  consequences  of  such  delay. 
The    early    reports    of    European    battles    did    not 
furnish  a  standard  by  which  to  judge  the  accuracy  of 
ours,  or  to  form  an  opinion  of  the  fidelity   of  our 
troops,  by  comparing  the  greater  number  of  missing 
shown    in    our    early    reports.      The     Peninsula,    in 
which  the  war  was  then   raging,  had,  he   said,  been 
found  to  be  a  heavily  wooded,  swampy  terra  incog- 
nita,   and  the  battles    were    fought    by    volunteers, 
most  of  whom  were  serving  their  first  year,  and  not 
by  veterans,  such  as  made  up  the  British   and  Con- 
tinental    armies.       Overtaken    by    darkness,    in    a 
swampy  region   penetrated  by  no  roads  save  those 
made  by  the  contending  armies,  new  men,  exhausted 
by  long  marches,  loss  of  sleep,  and  long  stretches  of 
fighting,  were  hardly  to  blame  for  falling  out  of  line 
and  seeking    a    night's    sleep  to    prepare   them    for 
returning  to  camp  in  the  morning.     The  surprise  to 
him  had  been,  not  the  largeness  but  the  smallness 

of  the  number  of  missing,  when  the  final  records  of 
19 


290  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

losses  in  battle  had  been  made  up.  And  to  the 
astonishment,  not  only  of  his  interlocutor,  but  of  all 
who  were  present,  Mr.  Lincoln  proceeded  to  com- 
pare the  first  and  final  reports  of  the  losses  at 
several  important  battles,  and  to  inquire  with  an  air 
of  quiet  satisfaction  whether  the  record  was  not  one 
which  exhibited,  on  the  part  of  volunteers,  many  of 
whom  were  little  more  than  raw  recruits,  a  devo- 
tion to  the  country  of  which  every  patriot  might  be 
proud. 

Having  heard  Mr.  Lincoln  answer  the  Professor 
satisfactorily,  and  vindicate  his  resort  to  darky 
arithmetic,  I  left  without  waiting  to  learn  to  what 
other  topics  his  attention  might  be  invited  by  his 
British  guests. 

IX. 

It  was  a  piece  of  rare  good  fortune  that  brought 
Goldwin  Smith  and  his  friends  to  my  side,  just  after 
I  had  taken  my  usual  seat  at  the  dinner-table.  The 
Professor  was  the  most  remote  of  the  party,  and  the 
gentleman  who  sat  next  me  had  evidently  parted 
from  him  before  he  left  the  Executive  Chamber, 
and  I  could  not  help  overhearing  the  conversation 
between  them. 

"  Professor,"  said  he,  "  can  you  give  me  the  im- 
pression President  Lincoln  made  upon  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said   he  ;  "  it  was  a    very  agreeable  one. 


BY    WILL/ AM  D.    KELLEY. 


2gi 


Such  a  person  is  quite  unknown  to  our  official  cir- 
cles or  to  those  of  Continental  nations.  Indeed,  I 
think  his  place  in  history  will  be  unique.  He  has 
not  been  trained  to  diplomacy  or  administrative 
affairs,  and  is  in  all  respects  one  of  the  people.  But 
how  wonderfully  he  is  endowed  and  equipped  for  the 
performance  of  the  duties  of  the  chief  executive  offi- 
cer of  the  United  States  at" this  time!  The  precision 
and  minuteness  of  his  information  on  all  questions 
to  which  we  referred  was  a  succession  of  surprises  to 
me. 

WILLIAM  D.  KELLEY. 


3!iiiiSfiai;iii;;i£!;ij;;:iiiiMii 


6Ja.  Cic^. 


XV. 

Cassius  M.   Clay. 

WHILST  I  was  a  student  in  Transylvania 
University  at  Lexington,  Kentucky,  the 
main  building,  including  the  dormitory,  was  burned 
down,  and  I  sought  lodgings  with  Robert  Todd  and 
wife,  where  I  became  acquainted  with  Miss  Mary 
Todd.  Her  elder  sister  married  Ninian  Edwards, 
of  Illinois,  where  Miss  Todd  followed  and  married 
Abraham  Lincoln.  I  was  on  very  agreeable  terms 
with  the  Todd  family,  who  were  always  my  avowed 
friends  during  my  antislavery  career.  So  when  I 
went  to  speak  in  the  Fremont  campaign  at  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  in  1856,  Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  law 
partner,  O.  S.  Browning,  called  upon  me.  As  I  was 
speaking  every  day,  I  had  but  little  time  for  social 
intercourse.  The  feeling  against  the  liberal  move- 
ment was  as  violent  then  in  the  free  as  in  the  slave 
States.  Lovejoy  had  been  killed  not  long  before  at 
Alton,  and  the  State  House  was  refused  me.  But, 
as  the  weather  was  pleasant,  I  spoke,  in  the  grove 
which  was  about  it,  to  an  immense  audience,  for 
more  than    two  hours.      Lincoln  and  Browning  lay 


294 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


upon  the  ground,  whittling  sticks,  and  heard  me, 
throughout,  with  marked  attention.  Hurrying  on 
to  my  appointments,  I  saw  him  then  no  more.  I 
never  shall  forget  his  long,  ungainly  person,  and 
plain,  but  even  then  sad  and  thoughtful  features. 
He  was  but  little  known  to  the  world,  but  his  being 
the  husband  of  my  old  friend  of  earlier  days  caused 
me  to  look  with  interest  upon  him.  I  flatter  myself 
that  I  sowed  good  seed  in  good  ground,  which,  in 
the  providence  of  God,  produced  in  time  good  fruit. 

Joshua  and  James  Speed,  now  famous  for  their 
associations  with  Lincoln,  Kentuckians  and  natives 
of  Jefferson  County,  Kentucky,  were  my  schoolmates, 
and  relatives  of  John  Speed  Smith,  who  married  my 
eldest  sister  Eliza.  A  few  years  ago  Joshua  was  in- 
vited to  deliver  a  lecture  at  Berea  College,  in  my 
county,  upon  Lincoln.  This  college,  of  which  I  and 
John  G.  Fee  were  the  founders,  is  about  fourteen 
miles  from  Richmond  by  the  old  buggy  road.  I 
heard  Speed's  lecture  with  great  interest,  and  taking 
him  in  my  carriage,  drove  him  to  my  sister  Smith's 
residence,  about  twelve  miles  north-east  from  Berea. 
On  the  route  we  naturally  talked  much  of  Lincoln, 
of  which  conversation  I  will  give  some  account. 

Joshua  Speed,  the  son  of  a  wealthy  farmer,  quit 
Kentucky  and  set  up  a  miscellaneous  store  in  the 
capital  of  Illinois,  then  a  mere  backwoods  village. 
One  day  an  awkward  green  stranger  of  great  stature 


BY  CASSJUS  M.    CLAY.  295 

and  as  much  diffidence  entered  his  store,  and  asked 
Speed  if  he  could  fit  him  out  with  bedding  and  a 
few  other  named  articles.  Speed  said  "Yes;"  when 
Lincoln  went  around  and  examined  each  article 
carefully,  making  a  memorandum  with  Speed  of  the 
same.  When  his  list  was  completed,  he  asked  for 
the  whole  sum  of  the  bill,  which  was  about  thirty 
dollars.  Upon  that,  Lincoln,  looking  grave,  said : 
"  As  this  is  more  than  I  expected,  I  have  not  so 
much  money,  and  am  sorry  to  have  put  you  to  so 
much  trouble."  Speed  then  asked  him  his  name  and 
business,  when  Lincoln  said  that  he  was  just  com- 
mencing the  practice  of  the  law  in  Springfield,  and 
wanted  to  fit  up  a  small  office  and  sleeping-room. 
Speed  then  told  him  that  he  would  credit  him  for 
the  amount.  This  Lincoln  steadily  refused,  and  was 
about  to  depart,  when  Speed  said  :  "  Mr.  Lincoln, 
since  you  refuse  a  credit,  and  as  I  am  an  unmarried 
man,  and  have  a  double  bed  up-stairs,  I  will  be  glad 
to  share  it  with  you  till  you  can  make  more  agree- 
able arrangements."  To  this  Lincoln  did  not  at 
once  accede,  but  went  up-stairs  and  examined  the 
bed,  no  doubt  to  see  whether  it  was  large  enough 
without  annoying  his  host,  and  cordially  accepted 
his  generosity.  For  many  years  he  continued  to 
sleep  with  Speed,  which  gave  him  an  eminent  oppor- 
tunity to  study  Lincoln's  character.  This  rude  style 
of   living,  unknown    in    more    wealthy    and    refined 


296  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

society,  was  often  a  necessity  in  a  pioneer  country, 
to  which  all  ranks  were  at  times  accustomed.  The 
limits  here  imposed  forbid  my  enlarging  upon  these 
incidents,  but  I  will  name  a  few.  Traveling  one  day 
in  his  company,  a  storm  blew  some  young  birds 
from  their  nest,  Lincoln  dismounted  from  his  horse 
in  the  rain,  and  tenderly  replaced  them.  Once 
pleading  a  cause,  the  opposing  lawyer  had  all  the 
advantage  of  the  law  in  the  case  ;  the  weather  was 
warm,  and  his  opponent,  as  was  admissible  in 
frontier  courts,  pulled  off  his  coat  and  vest  as  he 
grew  warm  in  the  argument.  At  that  time  shirts 
with  the  button  behind  were  unusual.  Lincoln  took 
in  the  situation  at  once,  knowing  the  prejudices  of 
a  primitive  people  against  pretension  of  all  sorts,  or 
any  affectation  of  superior  social  rank.  Arising,  he 
said :  "  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  having  justice  on  my 
side,  I  don't  think  you  will  be  at  all  influenced  by 
the  gentleman's  pretended  knowledge  of  the  law, 
when  you  see  he  does  not  even  know  which  side  of 
his  shirt  should  be  in  front."  There  was  a  general 
laugh,  and  Lincoln's  case  was  won.  Speed  further 
said  that  as  soon  as  Lincoln  was  elected  President, 
he  wrote  to  him  to  name  any  office  he  would  like  to 
have.  But  he  wrote  back  that  his  business  was 
better  than  any  office  the  President  could  give  him. 
However,  afterward  Lincoln  made  his  brother, 
James  Speed,  Attorney-General.    The  old  apothegm, 


BY  CASSIUS  M.   CLAY.  297 

"  If  you  want  to  know  a  man,  travel  with  him 
or  Hve  with  him,"  was  intensified  in  Speed's  case. 
His  judgment,  therefore,  of  Lincoln's  character  is 
of  great  value.  He  regarded  him  as  humane,  phil- 
anthropic, and  eminently  the  most  just  man  he  ever 
knew,  and  that  he  well  deserved  of  all  men  the  name 
of  "  Honest  Abe." 

His  debate  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas  not  only 
showed  great  ability,  but  a  liberal  tendency.  And 
though  Douglas  was  the  first  popular  speaker  of  his 
day,  Lincoln  won  on  the  convictions  of  the  people  ; 
so  that,  although  Douglas  was  chosen  the  Senator  of 
Illinois,  the  debate, as  taken  down  by  stenographers, 
was  published  by  the  Whigs,  and  widely  distributed 
as  a  campaign  document.  This  brought  Lincoln 
prominently  before  the  nation  as  the  liberal  candi- 
date. He  was  invited  to  speak  in  New  York  by  the 
young  Whigs  and  Liberals,  and  I  met  him  again  for 
the  second  time,  and  had  on  the  cars  a  long  talk 
with  him  on  my  favorite  policy.  Lincoln  as  usual 
was  a  good  listener  ;  and  when  I  had  accumulated 
all  my  arguments  in  favor  of  liberation  he  said : 
"  Clay,  I  always  thought  that  the  man  who  made  the 
corn  should  eat  the  corn."  This  homely  illustration 
of  his  sentiments  has  lingered  ever  in  my  memory  as 
one  of  the  most  eminent  arguments  against  slavery. 
The  famous  Robert  G.  Breckinridge  said  :  **  The 
highest  of  all  rights  is  the  right  of  a  man  to  him- 


298  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

self."  As  a  splendid  and  axiomatic  declaration  it  has 
not  been  surpassed  in  antislavery  literature  ;  but  it  is 
only  a  declaration.  Whereas  Lincoln's  saying  is  not 
only  a  declaration,  but  an  argument  and  a  conclu- 
sion. 

Salmon  P.  Chase  was  my  first  choice  for  President, 
but  as  Ben.  Wade  divided  Ohio,  he  was  thrown  out 
of  the  race.  Wm.  H.  Seward  was  my  next  choice  ; 
but  when  he  made  his  great  electioneering  speech 
in  the  Senate,  where  he  declared  himself  in  favor  of 
Union,  with  or  without  slavery,  he  became  in  my 
view  an  unimportant  factor  in  the  great  liberal 
movement  of  our  times.  So  I  took  up  Lincoln  as  a 
more  reliable  man.     The  result  is  history. 

As  soon  as  Lincoln  was  nominated  he  wrote  me  a 
letter  offering  the  post  of  Secretary  of  War,  which 
seemed  to  be  the  general  desire  of  the  Chicago  con- 
vention of  i860.  (See  letter,  Kentucky  Historical 
Society.)  He  also  wrote  me  several  letters  asking 
me  to  speak  in  Indiana  and  Illinois,  in  one  of  which 
he  wrote  from  Springfield,  Illinois,  July  20,  i860: 
"  In  passing,  let  me  say,  that  at  Rockport  you  will 
be  in  the  county  within  which  I  was  brought  up  from 
my  eighth  year,  having  left  Kentucky  at  that  part 
of  my  life."  I  spoke  in  Indiana  and  Illinois,  both  of 
which  we  carried,  but  S.  Cameron  was  made  Sec- 
retary of  War. 

After  I  refused  to  go  for  Seward  he  became  my 


BY  CASSIUS  M.    CLAY.  299 

personal  enemy.  Relying  upon  Lincoln's  promise,  I 
never  saw  him  till  after  the  inauguration  ;  but  Seward, 
aided  by  the  Southern  Whigs,  persuaded  him  that  my 
appointment  would  be  "  a  declaration  of  war  upon 
the  South  " — at  least  Lincoln  was  thus  influenced. 

Without   my   knowledge,   I    was  heralded   as   the 
Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  Madrid.     I  at  once  went 
on  to  Washington  and  told  Lincoln  that  I  would  not 
go   to   an   old   effete   government   like   Spain.      He 
seemed  very  reticent  and  grave,  but  asked  me  what 
office   I  would  have.      I   said,  since  the  Cabinet  was 
full,  I  would  go  to  England  or  France  as   Minister. 
He  said  Seward  had  promised  those  posts  to  Charles 
Francis  Adams  and  Wm.  L.  Dayton.      "Then,"  said 
I.  taking  my  hat,  "I  will  go  home."      Lincoln   then 
said  :  "  Clay,  don't  go  home  ;  I  will  consider  the  mat- 
ter."    The  same  day   I  dined  with  the  leading  Re- 
.  publicans  of  the  nation  then  in  Washington,  at  the 
house  of  the  Belgian  Minister,  Sanford.     At  an  early 
hour  I  was  called  to  the  hall  to  see  Senator  Baker 
from  Oregon,  with  whom  I  was  intimate,  we  having 
been  together  in  the   Mexican  War.      He  was  killed 
at  Ball's   Bluff.      Baker  said  he  had  conversed  with 
Lincoln  about  me,  and  the  President  was  anxious  to 
satisfy  my  aspirations;   the  country  was  divided  into 
personal  and  political  factions,  and   it  was  hard  to 
solidify  the  party — would   I   not  accept  the  mission 
to  Russia  ?     I  replied,  that  I  had  spent  my  life  and 


300 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


fortune  in  the  public  service — canvassed  for  five 
Presidents  who  held  power,  and  never  asked  or  re- 
ceived an  office  ;  that  now,  when  I  could  accept  one 
— without  compromise  of  my  principles — the  hungry 
harpies,  mercenary  camp-followers,  swooped  down 
upon  me.  No,  I  would  go  home  and  stay  there. 
Baker  seemed  to  feel  the  injustice  done  me,  but  con- 
tinued :  "  You  have  made  great  sacrifices,  but  does 
not  patriotism  require  still  more  ?  Lincoln  thinks 
your  return  home  would  seriously  injure  the  party 
and  the  country  :  and  so  do  I."  I  then  said  :  "  Well, 
Russia  is  a  young  and  powerful  nation,  and  must 
greatly  figure  in  our  affairs  :  I  will  accept."  Without 
ceremony.  Baker  said  :  "  Get  your  hat,  and  we  will  go 
to  the  White  House  at  once."  We  went  ;  and  with- 
out sending  up  a  card,  we  entered  Lincoln's  recep- 
tion-room. He  was  alone,  and  evidently  awaiting 
us.  He  was  quite  sad  and  thoughtful.  With  his  . 
head  bent  down  in  silence  he  awaited  Baker's  re- 
port, who,  without  sitting  down,  said :  "  Mr.  Lincoln, 
our  friend  Clay  will  accept  the  Russian  mission." 
Lincoln  then  rose  up,  and,  advancing  rapidly  toward 
me,  firmly  took  my  hand  and  said  :  "  Clay,  you  have 
relieved  me  from  great  embarrassment." 

I  went  home  at  once,  brought  my  family  to  Wash- 
ington, and  was  ready  to  set  out  for  Europe,  when 
the  railroad  and  telegraph  lines  north  were  cut,  and 
the  ships  sunk  in  the  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  the  re- 


BV   CASSIUS  M.    CLAY.  3OI 

bellion  was  fairly  begun.  I  sent  my  family  to  Phila- 
delphia on  the  last  train  that  passed  north,  and 
stayed  myself  in  defense  of  the  capital.  I  and  Sen- 
ator James  Lane,  of  Kansas,  at  once  organized  a  bat- 
talion, of  which  I  was  chosen  commander,  and  we 
assisted  in  the  expulsion  of  the  rebels,  and  the  de- 
fence of  the  President,  the  City  of  Washington,  the 
Federal  offices  and  buildings.  For  the  design  of 
the  Slave-Power  was  to  capture  all  these,  and  thus 
gain  recognition  by  the  nations  as  the  government 
de facto.  As  commander  of  the  "Clay  Battalion,"  I 
was  in  close  contact  with  the  President,  and  the  age  of 
General  Winfield  Scott,  and  the  general  distrust  and 
treason  of  the  regular  army,  gave  me  almost  dicta- 
torial power  for  a  time  in  Washington.  Captured 
and  distrusted  spies  were  brought  to  me  directly,  and 
a  quasi-ambassador,  Hurlburt,  from  the  ostensibly 
loyal  men  of  Virginia,  came  to  me  with  the  terms  of 
a  truce,  which  will  be  more  elaborately  treated  of  in 
my  forthcoming  "  Memoirs,  Writings,  and  Speeches." 
These  I  reduced  to  writing  and  showed  to  Lincoln, 
which  he  carefully  read,  and  said  :  "  I  think  your 
course  is  well  ;  go  and  show  them  to  some  leading 
men,  and  act  as  you  think  best."  This  I  did,  and 
signed  in  my  own  name  on  honor,  as  the  government 
could  not  recognize  any  of  these  revolutionary  claims 
of  disloyal  authority.  The  capital  being  safe  by  the 
arrival  of  the  New  York,  Massachusetts,  and   Penn- 


302  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sylvania  volunteers,  I  sailed  from  Boston  to  Eu- 
rope. For  my  services  Lincoln  gave  me  his  cor- 
dial thanks,  issued  an  order  of  honor  through  the 
Secretary  of  War,  Simon  Cameron,  and  presented 
me  with  a  Colt's  revolver. 

Through  Seward's  enmity  I  was  recalled  in  the  fall 
of  1862,  receiving  the  compliments  of  the  depart- 
ment and  a  commission  of  major-general  of  volun- 
teers at  the  same  time. 

I  found, on  my  return,  the  Union  army  powerless, 
and  the  City  of  Washington  in  danger  of  capture.  I 
declared  openly  for  liberation  of  the  slaves  captured 
in  war,  and  of  all  the  States  in  rebellion.  All  the 
Cabinet  but  Salmon  P.  Chase,  were  either  against 
this  policy  or  temporizing.  Stanton  and  Halleck 
seemed  determined  to  ruin  all  the  old  antislavery 
generals — as  Fremont,  Blair,  etc.  ;  and  finding  my- 
self under  their  proscription,  notwithstanding  Sec- 
retary Chase's  backing,  I  determined  to  return  to 
Europe,  if  I  could.  I  went  to  Lincoln  and  gave  my 
reasons  for  a  change  of  policy— that  European  Gov- 
ernments would  go  against  us  if  we  fought  simply  for 
the  Union,  but  that  England  and  France,  especially, 
dared  not  interfere  if  we  fought  for  the  liberation  of 
the  slaves  ;  that  the  Democrats  wanted  peace  on  any 
terms,  and  the  Liberals  were  divided  by  a  temporiz- 
ing course.  What  was  the  use  of  fighting  for  the  old 
Union  with  the  cancer  of  slavery  left?     Better  make 


BY  CASSJUS  M.    CLAY. 


503 


peace  on  any  terms.  Let  us  nail  our  banner  of  uni- 
versal liberty  to  the  mast,  and  if  fall  we  must,  we 
would  at  least  fall  with  honor,  leaving  a  legacy  of  in- 
estimable value  to  an  immortal  cause.  I  said  I  had 
been  recalled  without  my  consent,  and  was  now 
trammeled  by  the  hatred  of  Stanton  and  Halleck, 
and  I  wanted  to  return  to  Europe.  Lincoln  heard 
me  with  great  patience  in  silence.  He  then  said : 
"Seward  told  me  you  wished  to  return."  I  replied, 
"It  is  untrue,"*  I  then  said  for  the  first  time  :  "  You 
promised  me  the  place  of  Secretary  of  War,  which 
you  gave  to  Cameron.  Now  Cameron  drives  me 
again  from  my  post  at  St.  Petersburg."  Lincoln  then 
said  :  "  I  was  persuaded  that  such  appointment  of 
you  would  be  a  declaration  of  war  against  the  South, 
and  whoever  heard  of  a  reformer  reaping  the  reward 
of  his  labors  in  his  lifetime  ?  "  He  then  went  on  to 
say  that  he  had  no  reason  to  refuse  to  send  me  back 
to  Russia.  Halleck  had  ordered  me  to  report  to 
General  B.  F.  Butler  at  once  In  New  Orleans.  Lin- 
coln tore  up  the  order,  and  said  :  "  There  is  much  in 
what  you  say  which  has  had  my  serious  thought,  but 
we  have  as  much  as  we  can  now  carry,  and  I  fear  if 
the  proclamation  of  freedom  should  be  issued,  Ken- 
tucky would  go  out  to  the  South."  I  said,  "  No;  I 
have  discussed  the  liberal  issue  all  these  years  in  my 
own  State  ;  those  who  would  favor  the  rebellion  are 


See  Lincoln's  letter  in  Men  of  Progress,  1869-70,  New  York. 


304  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

already  in  arms,  those  remaining  are  for  the  Union 
with  or  without  slavery ;  ten  men  would  not  be 
changed."  "  If  I  thought  so  I  would  act  at  once. 
The  Legislature  is  in  session,  go  down  and  see  what 
they  will  do  in  such  case."  So,  making  a  few  speeches 
North  on  my  way,  I  came  to  Frankfort  just  as  Kirby 
Smith  was  marching  his  victorious  troops  against 
my  county  town — Richmond.  The  Legislature  ad- 
journed, and  both  branches  heard  me  in  the  Hall  of 
the  House  of  Representatives.  I  was  not  only  heard 
with  patience,  but  often  cheered.  The  part  touching 
liberation  was  written  down  and  handed  to  the  re- 
porter of  the  Cincimiati  Gazette.  The  whole  speech 
reported  was  handed  by  me  to  Lincoln,  who  on  the 
22d  day  of  September,  1862,  issued  his  immortal 
proclamation  of  liberation.  Seward  and  all  the 
leading  Whig  and  Republican  journals  opposed  the 
proclamation  and  my  return  to  Russia.  The  Louis- 
ville Journal  said  I  ought  to  be  neither  general  nor 
minister,  but  deserved  to  be  sent  to  prison.  Mr. 
Lincoln  said  to  me  :  "  Don't  be  uneasy  about  your- 
self and  your  return  to  St.  Petersburg.  Seward  and 
no  other  man  can  hurt  you.  We  have  no  confidence 
in  Seward's  friendship,  and  he  is  kept  in  office  only 
for  reasons  of  state."  I  saw  much  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
at  the  White  House  and  the  Soldiers'  Home.  The 
new  movement  gave  confidence  to  our  cause  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  I  left  my  life-friend  in  better  spirits, 


BY  CASSIUS  M.   CLAY.  305 

and  our  armies  on  the  road  to  victory.  I  saw  no 
more  of  the  martyr  President. 

When  a  number  of  the  first  citizens  of  New  York 
desired  the  pardon  of  a  former  collector  for  defalca- 
tion, and  a  large  delegation  of  gentlemen  and  ladies 
came  down  to  Washington,  my  aid  was  invoked.  I 
went  with  a  num.ber  of  gentlemen,  and  spoke  to 
Lincoln  in  behalf  of  the  delinquent.  The  President 
heard  me  with  great  patience  and  silence,  and  when 
I  had  finished,  he  said  :  "  If  I  pardon  this  man,  and 
my  collector  takes  away  the  public  money,  what  shall 
I  do  ? "     That  settled  it. 

But  he  was  not  always  so  stern.  Three  of  my 
friends  in  Kentucky,  Democrats,  had  been  impris- 
oned in  Ohio  for  disloyalty.  I  asked  their  pardon, 
saying  I  was  sure  they  would  keep  their  mouths 
shut  and  be  loyal  to  the  government  thereafter. 
Without  a  word  Lincoln  wrote  their  pardon. 

I  was  one  day  with  Lincoln,  when  a  report  came 
that  one  of  our  unionists  was  caught  in  Virginia  by 
the  rebels  and  condemned  to  death,  the  choice  being 
left  him  to  be  hung  or  shot.  I  saw  a  trace  of  humor 
pass  over  his  sad  face  when  he  said  he  was  reminded 
of  a  camp-meeting  of  colored  Methodists  in  his  ear- 
lier days.  There  was  a  brother  who  responded  often 
to  the  preacher  with  "Amen,"  "  Bless  the  Lord,"  etc. 
The  preacher  drew  a  strong  line,  sweeping  the  sin- 
ners on  both  sides  into  the  devil's  net  :  "All  those 


306  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

who  thus  sin  are  in  the  downward  path  to  ruin,  and 
all  those  who  so  act,  including  about  the  whole 
human  race,  are  on  the  sure  road  to  hell"  The 
unctuous  brother,  bewildered,  cried  out :  "  Bless  the 
Lord,  this  nigger  takes  to  the  woods ! " 

When  Charles  Francis  Adams  delivered  his  eulogy 
upon  Seward,  by  invitation,  at  Albany,  New  York,  I 
wrote  a  reply  which  was  widely  spread  in  the  jour- 
nals, to  which  I  refer  those  who  care  to  know  my 
estimate  of  Lincoln.  I  need  not  say  that  I  place 
him  first  of  all  his  contemporaries  in  natural  ability 
and  devoted  patriotism. 

C.  M.  CLAY. 


XVI. 

Robert  G.  Ingersoll 

STRANGE  mingling  of  mirth  and  tears,  of  the 
tragic  and  grotesque,  of  cap  and  crown,  of  Soc- 
rates and  Rabelais,  of  yEsop  and  Marcus  Aurelius, 
of  all  that  is  gentle  and  just,  humorous  and  honest, 
merciful,  wise,  laughable,  lovable  and  divine,  and 
all  consecrated  to  the  use  of  man  ;  while  through 
all,  and  over  all,  an  overwhelming  sense  of  obli- 
gation, of  chivalric  loyalty  to  truth,  and  upon  all 
the  shadow  of  the  tragic  end. 

Nearly  all  the  great  historic  characters  are  im- 
possible monsters,  disproportioned  by  flattery,  or 
by  calumny  deformed.  We  know  nothing  of  their 
peculiarities,  or  nothing  but  their  peculiarities. 
About  the  roots  of  these  oaks  there  clings  none 
of  the  earth  of  humanity.  Washington  is  now  only 
a  steel  enofravine-  About  the  real  man  who  lived 
and  loved  and  hated  and  schemed  we  know  but 
little.  The  glass  through  which  we  look  at  him  is 
of  such  high  magnifying  power  that  the  features  are 
exceedingly  indistinct.  Hundreds  of  people  are  now 
engaged  in  smoothing  out  the  lines  of  Lincoln's  face 


308  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

— forcing  all  features  to  the  common  mold — so  that 
he  may  be  known,  not  as  he  really  was,  but,  accord- 
ing to  their  poor  standard,  as  he  should  have  been. 

Lincoln  was  not  a  type.  He  stands  alone — no 
ancestors,  no  fellows,  and  no  successors.  He  had 
the  advantage  of  living  in  a  new  country,  of  social 
equality,  of  personal  freedom,  of  seeing  in  the  hori- 
zon of  his  future  the  perpetual  star  of  hope.  He 
preserved  his  individuality  and  his  self-respect.  He 
knew  and  mingled  with  men  of  every  kind  ;  and,  after 
all,  men  are  the  best  books.  He  became  acquainted 
with  the  ambitions  and  hopes  of  the  heart,  the  means 
used  to  accomplish  ends,  the  springs  of  action  and 
the  seeds  of  thought.  He  was  familiar  with  nature, 
with  actual  things,  with  common  facts.  He  loved 
and  appreciated  the  poem  of  the  year,  the  drama  of 
the  seasons. 

In  a  new  country,  a  man  must  possess  at  least  three 
virtues — honesty,  courage  and  generosity.  In  culti- 
vated society,  cultivation  is  often  more  important 
than  soil.  A  well  executed  counterfeit  passes  more 
readily  than  a  blurred  genuine.  It  is  necessary 
only  to  observe  the  unwritten  laws  of  society — to  be 
honest  enough  to  keep  out  of  prison,  and  generous 
enough  to  subscribe  in  public — where  the  subscription 
can  be  defended  as  an  investment.  In  a  new  country, 
character  is  essential ;  in  the  old,  reputation  is  suf- 
ficient.     In  the  new,  they  find  what  a  man  really  is; 


BY  ROBERT  G.    INGERSOLL.  309 

in  the  old,  he  generally  passes  for  what  he  resembles. 
People  separated  only  by  distance  are  much  nearer 
together  than  those  divided  by  the  walls  of  caste. 

It  is  no  advantage  to  live  in  a  great  city,  where 
poverty  degrades  and  failure  brings  despair.  The 
fields  are  lovelier  than  paved  streets,  and  the  great 
forests  than  walls  of  brick.  Oaks  and  elms  are 
more  poetic  than  steeples  and  chimneys.  In  the 
country  is  the  idea  of  home.  There  you  see  the 
rising  and  setting  sun  ;  you  become  acquainted  with 
the  stars  and  clouds.  The  constellations  are  your 
friends.  You  hear  the  rain  on  the  roof  and  listen 
to  the  rhythmic  sighing  of  the  winds.  You  are 
thrilled  by  the  resurrection  called  Spring,  touched 
and  saddened  by,Autumn,  the  grace  and  poetry  of 
death.  Every  field  is  a  picture,  a  landscape ;  every 
landscape,  a  poem  ;  every  flower,  a  tender  thought ; 
and  every  forest,  a  fairy-land.  In  the  country  you 
preserve  your  identity — your  personality.  There 
you  are  an  aggregation  of  atoms,  but  in  the  city 
you  are  only  an  atom  of  an  aggregation. 

Lincoln  never  finished  his  education.  To  the 
night  of  his  death  he  was  a  pupil,  a  learner,  an  in- 
quirer, a  seeker  after  knowledge.  You  have  no  idea 
how  many  men  are  spoiled  by  what  is  called  educa- 
tion. For  the  most  part,  colleges  are  places  where 
pebbles  are  polished  and  diamonds  are  dimmed.  If 
Shakespeare    had    graduated  at    Oxford,   he    might 


3IO  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

have  been  a  quibbling  attorney  or  a  hypocritical 
parson. 

Lincoln  was  a  many-sided  man,  acquainted  with 
smiles  and  tears,  complex  in  brain,  single  in  heart, 
direct  as  light ;  and  his  words,  candid  as  mirrors, 
gave  the  perfect  image  of  his  thought.  He  was 
never  afraid  to  ask — never  too  dignified  to  admit 
that  he  did  not  know.  No  man  had  keener  wit  or 
kinder  humor.  He  was  not  solemn.  Solemnity  is  a 
mask  worn  by  ignorance  and  hypocrisy — it  is  the 
preface,  prologue,  and  index  to  the  cunning  or  the 
stupid.  He  was  natural  in  his  life  and  thought — 
master  of  the  story-teller's  art,  in  illustration  apt,  in 
application  perfect,  liberal  in  speech,  shocking  Phari- 
sees and  prudes,  using  any  word  that  wit  could  dis- 
infect. 

He  was  a  logician.  Logic  is  the  necessary  product 
of  intelligence  and  sincerity.  It  cannot  be  learned. 
It  is  the  child  of  a  clear  head  and  a  good  heart. 
He  was  candid,  and  with  candor  often  deceived 
the  deceitful.  He  had  intellect  without  arro- 
gance, genius  without  pride,  and  religion  without 
cant — that  is  to  say,  without  bigotry  and  without 
deceit. 

He  was  an  orator — clear,  sincere,  natural.  He 
did  not  pretend.  He  did  not  say  what  he  thought 
others  thought,  but  what  he  thought.  If  you  wish 
to  be  sublime  you  must  be  natural — you  must  keep 


BY  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL.  311 

close  to  the  grass.  You  must  sit  by  the  fireside  of 
the  heart :  above  the  clouds  it  is  too  cold.  You 
must  be  simple  in  your  speech  :  too  much  polish 
suggests  insincerity.  The  great  orator  idealizes  the 
real,  transfigures  the  common,  makes  even  the  in- 
animate throb  and  thrill,  fills  the  gallery  of  the 
imagination  with  statues  and  pictures  perfect  in 
form  and  color,  brings  to  light  the  gold  hoarded 
by  memory,  the  miser — shows  the  glittering  coin  to 
the  spendthrift,  hope — enriches  the  brain,  ennobles 
the  heart,  and  quickens  the  conscience.  Between 
his  lips,  words  bud  and  blossom. 

If  you  wish  to  know  the  difference  between  an 
orator  and  an  elocutionist — between  what  is  felt  and 
what  is  said — between  what  the  heart  and  brain  can 
do  toeether  and  what  the  brain  can  do  alone — read 
Lincoln's  wondrous  words  at  Gettysburg,  and  then 
the  speech  of  Edward  Everett.  The  oration  of  Lin- 
coln will  never  be  forgotten.  It  will  live  until  lan- 
guages are  dead  and  lips  are  dust.  The  speech  of 
Everett  will  never  be  read.  The  elocutionists  be- 
lieve in  the  virtue  of  voice,  the  sublimity  of  syntax, 
the  majesty  of  long  sentences,  and  the  genius  of  ges- 
ture. The  orator  loves  the  real,  the  simple,  the  nat- 
ural. He  places  the  thought  above  all.  He  knows 
that  the  greatest  ideas  should  be  expressed  in  the 
shortest  words — that  the  greatest  statues  need  the 
least  drapery. 


312 


REMINISCEiWCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Lincoln  was  an  immense  personality — firm  but  not 
obstinate.  Obstinacy  is  egotism — firmness,  heroism. 
He  influenced  others  without  effort,  unconsciously; 
and  they  submitted  to  him  as  men  submit  to  nature, 
unconsciously.  He  was  severe  with  himself,  and  for 
that  reason  lenient  with  others.  He  appeared  to 
apologize  for  being  kinder  than  his  fellows.  He  did 
merciful  things  as  stealthily  as  others  committed 
crimes.  Almost  ashamed  of  tenderness,  he  said  and 
did  the  noblest  words  and  deeds  with  that  charm- 
ing confusion — that  awkwardness — that  is  the  perfect 
grace  of  modesty.  As  a  noble  man,  wishing  to  pay 
a  small  debt  to  a  poor  neighbor,  reluctantly  offers  a 
hundred-dollar  bill  and  asks  for  change,  fearing  that 
he  may  be  suspected  either  of  making  a  display  of 
wealth  or  a  pretense  of  payment,  so  Lincoln  hesi- 
tated to  show  his  wealth  of  goodness,  even  to  the 
best  he  knew. 

A  great  man  stooping,  not  wishing  to  make  his 
fellows  feel  that  they  were  small  or  mean. 

He  knew  others,  because  perfectly  acquainted  with 
himself.  He  cared  nothing  for  place,  but  every- 
thing for  principle  ;  nothing  for  money,  but  every- 
thing for  independence.  Where  no  principle  was 
involved,  easily  swayed — willing  to  go  slowly,  if  in 
the  right  direction — sometimes  willing  to  stop,  but 
he  would  not  go  back,  and  he  would  not  go  wrong. 
He  was  willine  to  wait.     He  knew  that   the  event 


BV  ROBERT  G.   INGERSOLL.  313 

was  not  waiting,  and  that  fate  was  not  the  fool  of 
chance.  He  knew  that  slavery  had  defenders,  but 
no  defense,  and  that  they  who  attack  the  right  must 
wound  themselves.  He  was  neither  tyrant  nor 
slave.  He  neither  knelt  nor  scorned.  With  him, 
men  were  neither  great  nor  small, — they  were  right 
or  wrong.  Through  manners,  clothes,  titles,  rags 
and  race  he  saw  the  real — that  which  is.  Beyond 
accident,  policy,  compromise  and  war  he  saw  the 
end.  He  was  patient  as  Destiny,  whose  unde- 
cipherable hieroglyphs  were  so  deeply  graven  on 
his  sad  and  tragic  face. 

Nothing  discloses  real  character  like  the  use  of 
power.  It  is  easy  for  the  weak  to  be  gentle.  Most 
people  can  bear  adversity.  But  if  you  wish  to 
know  what  a  man  really  is,  give  him  power.  This 
is  the  supreme  test.  It  is  the  glory  of  Lincoln  that, 
having  almost  absolute  power,  he  never  abused  it, 
except  upon  the  side  of  mercy. 

Wealth  could  not  purchase,  power  could  not  awe 
this  divine,  this  loving  man.  He  knew  no  fear  ex- 
cept the  fear  of  doing  wrong.  Hating  slavery, 
pitying  the  master — seeking  to  conquer,  not  persons, 
but  prejudices — he  was  the  embodiment  of  the  self- 
denial,  the  courage,  the  hope,  and  the  nobility  of  a 
nation.  He  spoke,  not  to  inflame,  not  to  upbraid, 
but  to  convince.  He  raised  his  hands,  not  to 
strike,  but  in   benediction.      He   longed   to  pardon. 


314  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

He  loved  to  see  the  pearls  of  joy  on  the  cheeks 
of  a  wife  whose  husband  he  had  rescued  from 
death. 

Lincoln  was  the  grandest    figure    of   the    fiercest 
civil  war.      He  is  the  gentlest  memory  of  our  world. 

ROBERT   G.  INGERSOLL. 


XVII. 

A.  H.  Markland. 

NOT  long  after  the  November  election  of  i860, 
an  association  was  formed  in  Washington  City 
for  the  purpose  of  gathering  information  as  to  the 
real  condition  of  political  affairs  in  the  South  with 
reference  to  threatened  secession,  and  to  organize  for 
such  remedies  as  might  seem  necessary.  This  asso- 
ciation was  composed  of  gentlemen  mainly  from  the 
Southern  States,  who  were  for  the  maintenance  of 
the  Union  at  whatever  cost.  Some  were  the  person- 
al friends  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  others  had  opposed 
his  election.  In  the  membership  were  men  who  had 
held  prominent  positions  in  the  public  service,  and 
who  were  skilled  in  political  diplomacy.  This  asso- 
ciation held  its  meetings  for  consultation  daily  and 
nightly  during  the  winter  months  of  i860  and  1861, 
and  though  the  meetings  were  not  absolutely  secret 
they  were  not  openly  public.  I  was  one  of  the  young 
members  of  the  association.  It  is  not  material  to 
state  what  steps  were  taken  or  what  methods  were 
adopted  to  accomplish  the  work  in  view.     It  is  suf- 


3l6  REMIXISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ficlent  to  say  that  while  the  disunionists  had  their 
agents  visiting  State  capitals  and  the  large  cities  to 
address  Legislatures  and  the  people  generally  on  the 
beauties  of  secession,  the  Unionists  were  educating 
them  in  a  more  quiet  way  to  its  folly  and  danger. 

It  was  through  this  association  I  became  personally 
acquainted  with  Abraham  Lincoln  shortly  after  his 
inauguration. 

My  first  interview  with  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  com- 
pany with  some  of  his  intimate  personal  friends,  who 
called  informally  to  pay  their  respects  to  him  as  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  When  the  salutations 
and  congratulations  were  being  made  to  Mr.  Lincoln, 
one  of  his  secretaries  placed  some  papers  on  his  table 
for  signature.  Mr.  Lincoln  excused  himself  for  the 
moment  by  this  remark  : 

"Just  wait  now  until  I  sign  some  papers,  that  this 
government  may  go  on." 

The  papers  being  signed,  Mr.  Lincoln  entered  into 
a  chatty  conversation  on  public  subjects,  in  which  he 
gave  his  views  on  the  situation  as  then  presented  by 
the  attitude  of  the  Southern  States.  He  was  then 
hopeful  that  a  more  serious  phase  of  the  threatened 
trouble  might  be  averted,  and  that  the  better  judg- 
ment of  the  citizens  of  the  South  might  prevail.  But 
he  was  very  decided  and  determined  as  to  what  his 
duty  was  and  what  his  action  would  be,  if  the  seces- 
sionists and  disunionists  pressed  their  case.    He  said  : 


BY  A.    H.    MARK  LAND.  3l7 

"  The  disunionists  did  not  want  me  to  take  the 
oath  of  office.  I  have  taken  it,  and  I  intend  to  ad- 
minister the  office  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  in 
accordance  with  the  Constitution  and  the  law." 

The  interview  was  of  short  duration,  but  of  con- 
sequence as  showing  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  in  no 
measure  been  inattentive  to  the  growth  of  disunion 
sentiment  in  the  South,  nor  was  he  in  doubt  as  to 
what  means  should  be  taken  to  check  its  progress. 
He  had  said  to  a  prominent  Democratic  politician  of 
the  State  of  Kentucky  who  called  upon  him  at  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  immediately  after  the  November  elec- 
tion : 

"  The  Fugitive  Slave  law  will  be  better  adminis- 
tered under  my  administration  than  it  ever  has  been 
under  that  of  my  predecessors.  If  your  party  has 
been  honest  in  its  execution  I  will  see  that  my  party 
is  equally  honest  in  its  execution." 

The  gentleman  said  in  reply  : 

"  Mr.  Lincoln,  if  you  will  put  that  in  writing  that 
I  make  take  it  South  and  show  it  to  the  people,  I  will 
guarantee  to  save  every  State  from  secession  except 
probably  South  Carolina." 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  : 

"Sir,  these  are  my  views,  given  to  you  honestly 
and  with  good  intent.  You  may  use  them  as  you 
think  proper.  It  would  be  indelicate  and  uncalled 
for  to  put  them  in  writing,  at  this  time,  for  the  pur- 


3l8  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

pose  you  indicate.  I  have  not  yet  been  placed  in 
charge  of  the  government.  When  the  time  comes 
for  me  to  assume  authority,  I  will  speak  plainly  and 
explicitly,  and  no  man  who  is  for  the  Union  will  mis- 
take me." 

The  gentleman,  with  whom  this  conversation  was 
had,  has  repeated  it  to  me  within  the  last  few  days. 

The  persuasive  methods  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his 
friends  for  the  adjustment  of  the  differences  be- 
tween the  Unionists  and  disunionists  were  destroyed 
by  Beauregard's  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter. 
The  business  of  active  war  was  inaugurated.  At 
a  consultation  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  a  number 
of  Kentuckians  then  in  Washington  City,  it  was 
determined  that  come  what  would  Kentucky  should 
not  be  plunged  into  secession  and  war  against  the 
Union.  The  importance  of  that  State  in  the  prose- 
cution of  the  struggle  for  the  supremacy  of  the  law 
and  the  Union  was  such  that  it  was  deemed  advis- 
able to  observe  the  most  conciliatory  policy  in 
relation  to  it.  It  was,  however,  understood  that 
preparations  should  be  made  for  the  emergency  if 
the  conciliatory  policy  should  fail.  The  earnestness 
with  which  Mr.  Lincoln  looked  to  the  importance 
and  action  of  Kentucky  was  shown  by  his  language 
at  that  conference.     He  said  ; 

"  Kentucky  must  not  be  precipitated  into  seces- 
sion.    She   is  the  key  to  the  situation.     With  her 


BY  A.    II.    MARKLAND.  319 

faithful  to  the  Union  the  discord  in  the  other  States 
will  come  to  an  end.  She  is  now  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  do  not  represent  the  people.  The  senti- 
ment of  her  State  officials  must  be  counteracted. 
We  must  arouse  the  young  men  of  the  State  to 
action  for  the  Union.  We  must  know  what  men  in 
Kentucky  have  ths  confidence  of  the  people,  and 
who  can  be  relied  on  for  good  judgment,  that  they 
may  be  brought  to  the  support  of  the  Government 
at  once." 

He  paid  a  high  tribute  to  the  patriotism  of  the 
Southern  men  who  had  stood  up  against  secession. 
He  said  : 

"  But  they  are  as  a  rule  beyond  the  meridian  of 
life,  and  their  counsels  and  example  do  not  operate 
quickly,  if  at  all,  on  the  excitable  nature  of  young 
men,  who  become  inflamed  by  the  preparations  of 
war,  and  who,  in  such  a  war  as  this  will  be,  if  it 
goes  on,  are  apt  to  go"  in  on  the  side  that  gives  the 
first  opportunity.  The  young  men  must  not  be  per- 
mitted to  drift  away  from  us.  I  know  that  the  men 
who  voted  against  me  in  Kentucky  will  not  permit 
this  government  to  be  swept  away  by  any  such 
issue  as  that  framed  by  the  disunionists.  We  need 
only  to  organize  against  Governor  McGoffin's  fol- 
lowers to  beat  them." 

In  this  consultation  or  conference  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  the  principal  spokesman,  and  both   in  manner 


'*20  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  matter  he   gave    evidence    that    he  was   not  a 
novice  in  leadership. 

Immediately  a  campaign  for  the  Union  was  begun 
in  Kentucky.  A  pacific  campaign  it  was.  Warlike 
preparations  were  openly  going  on  within  the  bor- 
ders of  every  other  State  in  the  Union.  What  was 
being  done  in  Kentucky  was  the  work  of  the  pen 
and  the  eloquence  of  the  orator,  for  the  Union  or 
neutrality,  which  was  only  another  name  for  seces- 
sion. The  State  could  not  be  dragooned  into 
open  secession,  therefore  the  neutrality  policy  was 
adopted.  That  policy  was  more  rigidly  observed 
by  Mr.  Lincoln  than  it  was  by  his  opponents,  but 
he  was  not  misled  by  it.  On  the  contrary,  he 
knew  its  treachery,  and  prepared  for  it.  Lieuten- 
ant William  Nelson,  of  the  United  States  Army,  a 
native  of  the  State  of  Kentucky,  was  detailed  for 
a  special  service — a  service  requiring  intelligence, 
courage,  and  an  accurate  knowledge  oi  men.  Judge 
Joseph  Holt  made  eloquent  appeals  for  the  Union 
through  the  columns  of  the  press  and  from  the 
forum,  as  did  the  Speeds,  the  Goodloes,  and  many 
others  of  prominence.  Rousseau,  Jacob,  Pound- 
baker  and  others  stood  guard  in  the  Legislature, 
and  by  their  eloquence  stayed  the  tide  of  disunion 
there.  Camps  for  recruiting  for  the  Union  were 
formed  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Ohio  River. 
Cairo,  Illinois,  was  occupied  by  Union  troops.     The 


BY  A.    //.    MARKLAND.  32 1 

neutrality  doctrine  of  Kentucky  was  fast  approach- 
insf  the  end  of  its  usefulness  to  the  Confederates. 
It  had  been  violated  by  them  in  the  establishment 
of  Camps  Boone  and  Trusdale,  on  the  southern 
border.  Generals  Pillow  and  Polk  occupied  Hick- 
man and  Columbus  respectively.  General  Grant 
and  his  Union  troops  at  once  occupied  Paducah, 
Kentucky,  and  the  head-quarters  of  the  Department 
of  the  Cumberland  were  removed  from  Cincinnati, 
Ohio,  to  Southern  Kentucky.  The  special  service 
of  Lieutenant  William  Nelson,  of  the  United  States 
Army,  had  been  prudently  and  faithfully  performed, 
and  the  arms  and  munitions  of  war,  with  which  he 
had  been  intrusted, were  in  the  hands  of  Union  men 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  State.  The  labors  of 
Judge  Holt,  the  Speeds,  the  Goodloes,  Cassius  M. 
Clay,  and  their  followers,  had  brought  forth  fruit 
for  the  Union.  The  patriotic  men  in  the  Legisla- 
ture had  done  their  work  well.  The  men  in  the 
camps  on  the  north  side  of  the  Ohio  River  moved 
over  into  Kentucky,  and  the  invasion  of  Confeder- 
ates, which  was  to  sweep  Kentucky  into  secession, 
was  at  an  end.  Kentucky  was  saved  to  the  Union 
by  the  wise  counsel  and  pacific  policy  of  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

The  Unionists  of  Kentucky  who  were  in  the  City 
of  Washinorton  durinor  the  summer  of  1861 — that 
summer  of   excitement,   and   oftentimes   of  positive 


322  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

discouragement — will  remember  with  what  faith  and 
how  earnestly  and  tenderly  Abraham  Lincoln  clung 
to  Kentucky.  He  was  willing  to  commission  her 
citizens,  though  they  had  declared  against  him, 
saying : 

"A  Kentuckian  who  will  accept  a  commission  from 
me  will  not  betray  his  trust." 

From  the  occupation  of  Paducah,  Kentucky,  may 
be  dated  the  warm  and  unswerving  friendship  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  for  General  U.  S.  Grant.  Other 
friends  may  have  wavered  in  their  friendship  for 
General  Grant,  and  even  recommended  his  removal 
from  command,  but  Abraham  Lincoln  was  faithful 
to  General  Grant  through  evil  and  good  report.  If 
his  confidence  was  ever  shaken  he  had  the  manliness 
to  tell  him  of  it  and  ask  his  pardon.  May  it  not  be 
that  when  General  Grant  recently  said,  as  reported, 
"  that  he  had  friends  on  the  other  side,"  he  was 
mindful  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  among  the 
number. 

To  recur  to  the  Paducah  proclamation  above 
referred  to,  I  heard  Mr.  Lincoln  use  these  words 
about  it  : 

''  The  modesty  and  brevity  of  that  address  to  the 
citizens  of  Paducah  show  that  the  officer  issuing  it 
understands  the  situation,  and  is  a  proper  man  to 
command  there  at  this  time." 

I  give  the  official  text  of  it  : 


BY  A.    H.   MARKLAND. 


323 


"PROCLAMATION  TO  THE  CITIZENS  OF    PADUCAH. 

"  I  have  come  among  you,  not  as  an  enemy,  but 
as  your  friend  and  fellow-citizen  ;  not  to  injure  or 
annoy  you,  but  to  respect  the  rights  and  to  defend 
and  enforce  the  rights  of  all  loyal  citizens.  An 
enemy  in  rebellion  against  our  common  Govern- 
ment has  taken  possession  of  and  planted  its  guns 
upon  the  soil  of  Kentucky,  and  fired  upon  our  flag. 
Hickman  and  Columbus  are  in  his  hands.  He  is 
moving  upon  your  city.  I  am  here  to  defend  you 
against  this  enemy,  and  to  assert  and  maintain  the 
authority  and  sovereignty  of  your  Government  and 
muie.  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  opinions.  I  shall 
deal  only  with  armed  rebellion  and  its  aiders  and 
abettors. 

"  You  can  pursue  your  usual  avocations  without 
fear  or  hinderance.  The  strong  arm  of  the  Govern- 
ment is  here  to  protect  its  friends  and  to  punish 
only  its  enemies. 

"  Whenever  it  is  manifest  that  you  are  able  to 
defend  yourselves,  to  maintain  the  authority  of  the 
Government,  and  to  protect  the  rights  of  all  its  loyal 
citizens,  I  shall  withdraw  the  forces  under  my  com- 
mand from  your  city. 

"U.  S.  GRANT, 
'''^ Brig. -Gen.  U.  S.  A.  Commanding. 

"Paducah,  Sept.  6,  1861. 

''Official.  T.  S.  BOWERS,  A.  A.  G." 


324  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

A  few  weeks  after  the  occupation  of  Paducah,  Ken- 
tucky, I  went  to  that  section  of  the  State  as  a  Gov- 
ernment officer,  and  from  that  time  until  the  close 
of  the  war  I  was  in  the  lines  of  the  United  States 
army.  I  returned  to  Washington  at  monthly  inter- 
vals and  always  called  on  Mr.  Lincoln  at  such  times. 
I  therefore  had  an  opportunity  to  see  him  under  all 
circumstances,  in  times  of  victory  and  times  of  de- 
feat. I  never  saw  him  in  an  ill  humor,  or  when  he 
did  not  have  some  cheerful  word  of  encouragement. 
I  remember  how  kindly  he  would  ask  after  different 
officers  of  an  army.  It  was  the  good  old-fashioned 
way  of  asking  after  their  health,  how  they  were 
getting  along,  whether  the  soldiers  liked  them  or 
not;  and  then  he  would  tell  seme  pleasant  story  of 
how  they  were  brought  to  his  attention  and  how  it 
happened  that  they  were  commissioned.  In  many 
cases  he  had  no  personal  acquaintance  with  the 
officers  inquired  after,  nor  were  they  of  sufficient 
rank  to  attract  his  special  attention.  His  inquiries 
were  not  directed  to  subjects  which  would  be  re- 
ferred to  in  official  reports,  or  find  their  way  into  the 
columns  of  the  newspapers.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if 
it  was  a  relief  to  him  to  learn  something  of  every-day 
life  in  the  army,  that  he  might  judge  the  officers  by 
their  standing  with  the  troops  of  their  command,  or 
by  their  traits  of  character  as  developed  in  camp, 
bivouac,  or  on  the  march. 


BV  J.   H.    MAKKLAND.  325 

I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  quite  frequently  up  to  the  time 
I  left  Washington  City  in  October,  1861,  and  he 
more  than  once  expressed  a  desire  in  writing  as  well 
as  by  verbal  request  that  I  should  take  a  prominent 
and  honorable  office.  Finally  I  became  an  officer  of 
the  Post-office  Department,  and  was  assigned  to  duty 
within  the  lines  of  the  army  under  the  command  of 
General  Grant.  While  in  the  West  my  duties  re- 
quired me  to  visit  Washington  City  almost  every 
month,  and  at  each  time  I  called  at  the  White  House 
to  see  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  was  one  of  the  officers  of  the 
government  who  came  east  with  General  Grant  in 
March,  1864,  when  he  came  to  take  charge  of  the 
armies  of  the  United  States.  From  that  time  until 
December,  1864,  when  I  left  to  join  General  Sher- 
man with  the  mails  for  his  army  when  it  came  out  to 
the  sea,  there  was  scarcely  a  week  I  did  not  see  him. 

My  last  interview  with  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  touch 
of  pathos  I  can  never  forget,  and  I  cannot  properly 
describe.  I  remember  his  words  well,  but  the  ex- 
pression of  his  countenance  and  the  modulation  of 
his  voice  is  far  beyond  any  description  I  could  give. 
When  General  Grant  directed  me  to  proceed  to  a 
point  where  I  might  possibly  hear  something  of 
General  Sherman's  approach  to  the  sea,  he  directed 
me  also  to  call  on  Mr.  Lincoln  in  Washington,  and 
take  any  message  Mr.  Lincoln  might  have  for  Gen- 
eral Sherman.     When   I   called,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  en- 


326  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

gaged  with  some  gentlemen  in  his  office.  My  card 
was  sent  to  him,  and  immediately  I  was  admitted. 
As  I  entered  the  door  he  arose  and  met  me  in  the 
center  of  the  room.  Extending  his  hand  to  me,  he 
said  : 

"  Well,  Colonel,  I  got  word  from  General  Grant 
that  you  were  going  to  find  Sherman,  and  that  you 
would  take  him  any  message  I  might  have.  I  know 
you  will  find  him,  because  we  always  get  good  news 
from  you.  Say  to  General  Sherman,  for  me,  when- 
ever and  wherever  you  see  him,  '  God  bless  him  and 
God  bless  his  army.'  That  is  as  much  as  I  can  say, 
and  more  than  I  can  write." 

He  held  my  hand  during  the  delivery  of  this  mes- 
sage, and  our  eyes  looked  into  each  other's.  The 
tear-drops  gathered  in  his  eyes,  his  lips  trembled, 
and  his  voice  faltered.  He  gave  evidence  of  being 
greatly  affected.  He  shook  my  hand,  bade  me  good- 
by,  and  I  proceeded  toward  the  door,  when  he  called 
to  me.  When  I  looked  back  he  was  standing  like  a 
statue  where  I  had  left  him.  "  Now,  remember  what 
I  say,"  and  then  he  repeated  the  message.  I  passed 
out  the  door  and  never  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  again,  but 
the  language  and  picture  of  that  meeting  will  never 
be  forgotten. 

I  met  General  Sherman  in  Ossabaw  Sound,  on  the 
flagship  of  Admiral  Dahlgren,  immediately  after  the 
fall  of  Fort  McAllister,  and  as  soon  as  I  could  strike 


BY  A.   H.    MARKLAND.  327 

hands  with  him  I  delivered  him  the  message,  and  by 
its  language  he  was  visibly  ajffected. 

It  has  been  thought  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  con- 
trolled by  his  Cabinet  Ministers.  My  observation 
was  quite  to  the  contrary.  He  was  the  master-spirit 
of  his  administration,  and,  by  unsurpassed  tact,  he 
kept  them  in  harmony  with  each  other  and  in  line 
with  himself.  Mr.  Lincoln  controlled  others  by  good 
common  sense,  perfect  frankness,  and  genial  nature. 
As  President  he  was  controlled  only  by  law  and  the 
equities.  He  always  had  the  courage  to  do  the 
proper  thing  at  the  proper  time. 

In  the  summer  of  1864,  Mr.  Blair,  the  Postmaster- 
General,  desired  to  have  a  certain  character  of  or- 
ders relating  to  the  postal  service  within  the  lines 
of  the  army.  When  the  subject  was  brought  to  the 
attention  of  General  Grant,  he  suggested  that  the 
proper  orders  ought  to  be  issued  by  the  Secretary 
of  War,  Mr.  Stanton.  A  draft  of  the  proposed 
orders  was  made  in  the  Adjutant-General's  office  at 
head-quarters,  and  a  letter  to  accompany  them  was 
sent  to  the  Postmaster-General.  I  was  directed  to 
go  to  the  War  Department  and  ask  that  the  orders 
be  issued.  Mr.  Stanton,  the  Secretary  of  War,  de- 
clined to  issue  them  to  accommodate  Mr.  Blair,  the 
Postmaster-General.  The  trouble  was  that  there 
was  a  little  official  jealousy  between  the  two  Cabinet 
Ministers.     When   I  returned  to  Mr,  Blair  with  the 


--28  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

information  that  the  orders  would  not  be  issued  by 
the  Secretary  of  War,  he  said,  "We  will  see."  He 
wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  which  he  gave  to  me 
to  deliv'er  with  the  accompanying  papers.  The  let- 
ter of  Mr.  Blair  read  in  this  way  : 

"  I  would  respectfully  ask  the  President's  attention 
to  the  within  communication.  While  the  mail  com- 
munications with  the  army  of  the  West  have  been 
satisfactory,  those  with  the  army  here  have  not  been. 
To  remedy  this  I  brought  Colonel  Markland  here. 
He  had  been  with  General  Grant  and  had  his  confi- 
dence. The  General,  you  will  perceive,  prepared  the 
requisite  orders,  but  they  remain  unacted  on  in  the 
W^ar  Department. 

"M.  BLAIR,  P.  M.  G. 

''June  9,  '64." 

When  I  delivered  the  letter,  Mr.  Lincoln  read  it 
carefully  and  handed  it  back  to  me,  saying  : 

"  What  is  the  matter  between  Blair  and  Stanton  ?  " 
I  told  him  all  I  knew  in  reference  to  the  proposed 
orders.      He  then  said  : 

"  If  I  understand  the  case,  General  Grant  wants 
the  orders  issued,  and  Blair  wants  them  issued,  and 
you  want  them  issued,  and  Stanton  won't  issue  them. 
Now,  don't  you  see  what  kind  of  a  fix  I  will  be  in  if 
I  interfere?     I'll   tell   you  what   to   do:  If  you  and 


BY  A.    H.   MARKLAND.  329 

General  Grant  understand  one  another,  suppose  you 
try  to  get  along  without  the  orders,  and  if  Blair  or 
Stanton  make  a  fuss  I  may  be  called  in  as  a  referee, 
and  I  may  decide  in  your  favor." 

The  orders  were  never  issued,  and  pleasant  rela- 
tions were  maintained  on  that  score  all  around. 

That  Abraham  Lincoln  was  favored  with  a  fund 
of  humor  and  a  sense  of  the  ridiculous  there  can  be 
no  question;  but  as  President  he  used  those  gifts, 
if  they  may  be  called  gifts,  for  a  worthy  and  laud- 
able purpose.  When  oppressed  with  care  and 
anxiety,  beset  with  importunities  he  could  not 
grant,  humor  was  to  him  a  relief,  and  an  encourage- 
ment to  his  despondent  listener.  His  sympathies 
were  with  the  people  and  for  the  people,  and  his 
only  ambition  was  that  the  Union  might  be  pre- 
served. It  is  a  singular  fact  that  all  men  who  came 
in  official  or  social  relations  with  Abraham  Lincoln 
while  he  was  President  were  Impressed  with  his  un- 
selfish patriotism  and  unyielding  Integrity. 

A.  H.  MARKLAND. 


XVIII. 

Schuyler  Colfax. 

THE  careers  of  good  and  of  great  men  are  the 
true   beacons  of    human   progress.     They  are 
Ho-hts  set  upon  a  hill,  illuminating  the  moral  atmos- 
phere around   them,    and  their  thoughts   and    deeds 
hallow  the  nations  to  which  they  belong,  and  become 
the  most  priceless  legacies  of  mankind.    Thus  Moses, 
David,  Solomon,  Plato,  Socrates,  Xenophon,  Seneca, 
Cicero    and   Epictetus,  still  speak  to   us   from  their 
tombs  even  more  impressively  than  when  they  lived 
and  spoke  and   walked   upon  the  earth.      Indeed,  as 
Carlyle  taught  us,  universal  history  is,  after  all,  only 
the  history  of  great   men  ;  and  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 
son insists,  with  remarkable   force  and  with  unques- 
tioned truth,  that  every  institution  is  but  the  length- 
ened   shadow   of   some   great   man  who  has   passed 
away,  as  the  Islamism    of    Mohammed,  the   Protest- 
antism of  Luther,  the  Jesuitism  of  Loyola,  the  Puri- 
tanism   of    Calvin,    the    Methodism  of  Wesley,    the 
Quakerism  of  Fox,  and  the  universal  emancipation. 

From  the  very  beginning  he  believed  exactly  as 
when  at  the  end.     He  compressed  a  whole  volume  of 


2)2>2  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

areument  into  the  sinofle,  clear-cut  and  unanswerable 
sentence  :  "  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  then  nothing  is 
wrong." 

Unanimously  nominated  for  Senator  by  a  repre- 
sentative State  convention  of  Illinois,  he  startled  and 
even  alarmed  many  of  his  warmest  and  most  enthu- 
siastic friends  by  fearlessly  advancing  in  his  speech  of 
acceptance  far  beyond  their  lines.  With  unparalleled 
boldness  for  those  days  and  that  region,  he  declared, 
in  ringfinof  sentences  characteristic  of  the  man  who 
was  to  become  the  foremost  character  in  American 
history,  and  as  positively  as  if  an  indisputable  and 
uncontested  axiom,  that  famous  political  aphorism, 
that  government  could  not  stand  divided  against  it- 
self, half  slave  and  half  free.  And  in  the  debate  that 
ensued  with  his  great  and  talented  antagonist.  Ste- 
phen A.  Douglas,  he  refused  to  retract  or  qualify  a 
single  word  of  this  darinor  defiant  avowal.  Thus 
did  Lincoln  become,  unconscious  to  himself,  the 
political  prophet  of  the  new  dispensation  about  to 
open  upon  our  land. 

The  success  of  the  National  cause  was,  with  Mr. 
Lincoln  as  President,  immeasurably  higher  than  all 
other  considerations,  personal,  political  or  humani- 
tarian. Hence,  because  he  did  not  believe  the  op- 
portune moment  had  yet  arrived,  he  refused,  In  1861, 
to  allow  Secretary  Cameron  to  arm  the  slaves,  or 
Fremont,    or    Hunter,   or   Phelps   to   proclaim   local 


BY  SCHUYLER   COLFAX.  333 

emancipation  in  the  South.  His  favorite  illustration 
in  the  discussions  in  those  days  with  his  confidential 
friends  was,  that  a  faithful  surgeon  must  always  strive 
to  save  both  life  and  limb,  even  thouorh  the  limb  was 
gangrened  and  diseased;  but  when  that  was  impos- 
sible, then,  at  all  hazards,  he  must  save  life  and  sacri- 
fice limb.  His  paramount  duty  was  to  save  the  life 
of  the  Union.  He  insisted,  in  his  well-remembered 
reply  to  Greeley  and  others,  that  he  could  not  strike 
at  slavery  until  all  other  measures  had  failed.  But 
at  last,  when  forbearance  had  ceased  to  be  a  virtue, 
when  every  family  altar  was  crimsoned  with  blood, 
every  cemetery  crowded  with  patriot  graves,  he  felt 
the  hour  had  struck,  and  he  was  ready. 

Conversing  with  him  one  night  in  the  telegraph 
office  of  the  War  Department,  he  suddenly  turned  the 
subject  from  campaigns  and  battles  to  mental  idio- 
syncrasies, discussing  the  individualities  of  Thaddeus 
Stevens,  of  Charles  Sumner,  and,  last  of  all,  Henry 
Wilson.  After  discussino-  the  characteristics  of  others 
with  a  keenness  of  analysis  that  strikingly  illustrated 
his  own  mental  powers,  he  added  that  a  peculiarity 
of  his  own  life  from  his  earliest  manhood  had  been, 
that  he  habitually  studied  the  opposite  side  of  every 
disputed  question,  of  every  law  case,  of  every  politi- 
cal issue,  more  exhaustively,  if  possible,  than  his  own 
side.  He  said  that  the  result  had  been,  that  in  all-his 
long  practice  at  the  bar  he  had  never  once  been  sur- 


334  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

prised  in  court  by  the  strength  of  his  adversary's  case 
— often  finding  it  much  weaker  than  he  had  feared. 
On  the  stump,  as  all  who  have  heard  him  there  will 
testify,  he  was  just  as  ready  to  answer  instanter  the 
affirmations  of  his  opponents  as  he  was  to  present 
and  vindicate  his  own. 

This  striking  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mental 
operations  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  searching 
questions  he  propounded  to  the  Chicago  ministers, 
who  called  on  him,  in  September,  1862,  to  demand  of 
him  a  proclamation  of  emancipation.  After  listening 
to  their  appeal,  he  replied,  pointedly  :  "  Now,  gentle- 
men, if  I  cannot  enforce  the  Constitution  down  South, 
how  am  I  to  enforce  a  mere  presidential  proclama- 
tion ?  Won't  the  world  sneer  at  it  as  being  as  power- 
less as  the  Pope's  bull  against  the  comet  ? "  and  they 
went  away  sorrowing,  in  the  erroneous  belief  that  he 
had  decided  the  case  adversely.  Really,  he  had 
already  resolved  two  months  before  on  what  they 
were  pleading  for,  and  only  nine  days  after  the  inter- 
view the  proclamation  was  issued. 

He  had  felt  embarrassed  only  on  that  one  point, 
and  as  they  claimed  that  they  had  studied  the  sub- 
ject from  every  possible  stand-point,  he  presented  it 
to  them,  hoping  that  they  would  furnish  some  apt 
solution  to  strengthen  him  in  his  already  inflexible 
purpose. 

One  of  these  ministers  felt  it  his  duty  to  make  a 


BY  SCHUYLER   COLFAX.  335 

more  searching  appeal  to  the  President's  conscience. 
Just  as  they  were  retiring,  he  turned,  and  said  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  "What  you  have  said  to  us,  Mr.  President, 
compels  me  to  say  to  you  in  reply,  that  it  is  a  mes- 
sage to  you  from  our  Divine  Master,  through  me, 
commanding  you,  sir,  to  open  the  doors  of  bondage 
that  the  slave  may  go  free  ! "  Mr.  Lincoln  replied, 
instantly,  "  That  may  be,  sir,  for  I  have  studied  this 
question,  by  night  and  by  day,  for  weeks  and  for 
months,  but  if  it  is,  as  you  say,  a  message  from  your 
Divine  Master,  is  it  not  odd  that  the  only  channel  he 
could  send  it  by  was  that  roundabout  route  by  that 
awfully  wicked  city  of  Chicago?" 

In  precisely  the  same  sense  in  which  we  say  the 
child  is  father  to  the  man,  the  Abraham  Lincoln  of 
the  Western  prairies  was  the  father  to  the  President 
Lincoln  of  the  White  House.  There,  in  the  West, 
he  had  reasoned  out  his  political  creed,  had  tested 
every  theory  at  the  bar  of  his  judgment  and  of  his 
conscience,  had  settled  unalterably  the  principles  of 
his  life,  had  anchored  himself  on  convictions  that 
were  immutable.  So,  in  the  frequent  local  contests 
at  the  bar,  waged  with  men  who  afterward  obtained 
brilliant  distinction  in  law,  in  politics,  and  in  elo- 
quence ;  in  the  sharp  antagonism  of  debate  with  one 
of  the  ablest  and  most  adroit  of  American  stump 
speakers,  Judge  Douglas ;  he  was  intellectually 
armed  and  equipped  for  the  responsibilities  by  which 


336  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

he  was   to  be   environed    in    the   dark   and  perilous 
times  of  civil  war. 

Time  was  Lincoln's  Prime  Minister.  He  always 
waited,  as  a  wise  man  should  wait,  until  the  right 
moment  brought  up  all  his  reserves.  George  W. 
Curtis  exactly  appreciated  all  his  methods  when  he 
claimed  for  him  that  he  sought  to  measure  so  accu- 
rately, so  precisely,  the  public  sentiment,  that,  when- 
ever he  advanced,  the  loyal  hosts  of  the  nation 
would  keep  step  with  him.  In  regard  to  the  policy 
of  arming  the  slaves  against  the  rebellion,  never 
until  the  tide  of  patriotic  volunteering  had  ebbed, 
and  our  soldiers  saw  their  ranks  rapidly  melting 
away,  could  our  colored  troops  have  been  added  to 
their  brigades  without  perilous  discontent  if  not 
open  revolt.  Against  all  appeals,  all  demands, 
asfainst  even  threats  of  some  members  of  his  own 
party,  Lincoln  stood  like  a  rock  on  this  question 
until  he  felt  that  the  opportune  moment  had  arrived. 

When  he  reached  Washington  City  to  take  the 
oath  of  office  the  ground  shook  under  his  feet,  but 
when  he  was  called  to  his  final  rest  he  left  our  re- 
public on  a  firm  and  solid  basis.  Annoyed  from 
the  very  opening  of  his  administration  by  persist- 
ent office-seekers  engrossing  nearly  all  his  time,  he 
used  to  exclaim,  "  I  seem  like  a  man  so  busy  letting 
rooms  at  one  end  of  his  house  that  he  has  no  time 
left  to  put  out  the  fire  that  is  blazing  and  destroying 


BV  SCHUYLER    COLFAX.  ■^■^■J 

at  the  other  end."  And  when  he  was  prostrated  in 
the  White  House  by  an  attack  of  small-pox,  he  said 
to  his  attendants,  "  Tell  all  the  office-seekers  to 
come  at  once,  for  now  I  have  something  I  can  give 
to  all  of  them."  No  one  except  those  who  saw  him 
daily  at  that  time  can  realize  how  the  nation's  woes 
and  trials  bore  upon  him  ;  how  his  inner  life  was 
clouded  with  somber  interests  and  disquietudes. 
One  morning,  calling  upon  him  at  an  early  hour  on 
business,  I  found  him  so  pale  and  careworn  that  I 
inquired  the  cause.  He  replied,  telling  me  of  bad 
news  received  at  a  late  hour  of  the  night,  and  not 
yet  printed,  adding  that  he  had  not  closed  his  eyes 
nor  breakfasted  ;  and  then  he  said,  with  an  anguished 
expression  which  I  shall  never  forget,  "  How  will- 
ingly would  I  exchange  places  to-day  with  the  soldier 
who  sleeps  on  the  ground  in  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 
mac." 

The  morning  after  the  bloody  battle  of  the  Wil- 
derness, I  saw  him  walk  up  and  down  the  Executive 
Chamber,  his  long  arms  behind  his  back,  his  dark 
features  contracted  still  more  with  gloom  ;  and  as  he 
looked  up,  I  thought  his  face  the  saddest  one  I  had 
ever  seen.  He  exclaimed  :  "  Why  do  we  suffer  re- 
verses after  reverses  !  Could  we  have  avoided  this 
terrible,  bloody  war !  Was  it  not  forced  upon  us  ! 
Is  it  ever  to  end!"  But  he  quickly  recovered,  and 
told  me  the  sad  aggregate  of  those  days  of  blood- 


S;^S  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

shed.  Of  course  it  is  perfectly  well  known  that  the 
battle  of  the  Wilderness,  however,  then  claimed  as  a 
drawn  battle,  was,  on  the  contrary,  a  bloody  reverse 
to  our  arms,  our  loss  in  killed  and  wounded  alone 
being  fifteen  thousand  more  than  the  Confederates. 
Hope  beamed  on  his  face  as  he  said,  "Grant  will 
not  fail  us  now  ;  he  says  he  will  fight  it  out  on  that 
line,  and  this  is  now  the  hope  of  our  country."  An 
hour  afterward,  he  was  telling  story  after  story  to 
congfressional  visitors  at  the  White  House,  to  hide 
his  saddened  heart  from  their  keen  and  anxious 
scrutiny. 

No  man  clothed  with  such  vast  power  ever  wielded 
it  more  tenderly  and  more  forbearingly.  No  man 
holding  in  his  hands  the  key  of  life  and  death  ever 
pardoned  so  many  offenders,  and  so  easily.  Judge 
Bates,  of  Missouri,  his  Attorney-General,  insisted 
that  lack  of  sternness  was  a  marked  defect  in  Lin- 
coln's character.  He  told  Mr.  Lincoln  once  in  my 
presence  that  this  defect  made  him  unfit  to  be 
trusted  with  the  pardoning  power.  Any  touching 
story,  specially  one  told  by  a  woman,  was  certain  to 
warp  if  not  to  control  his  decision.  One  winter 
night,  while  Congress  was  in  session,  I  left  all  other 
business  and  asked  him  to  pardon  the  son  of  a 
former  constituent  sentenced  to  be  shot  at  Daven- 
port Barracks,  Iowa,  for  desertion.  He  heard  the 
story  with  his  usual  patience,  although  worried  out 


BY  SCHUYLER   COLFAX.  339 

with  incessant  calls  and  cares,  then  replied  :  "  Some 
of  my  generals  complain  that  I  impair  discipline  by 
my  frequent  pardons  and  reprieves  ;  but  it  rests  me, 
after  a  day's  hard  work,  that  I  can  find  some  excuse 
for  saving  some  poor  fellow's  life,  and  I  shall  go  to 
bed  happy  to-night  as  I  think  how  joyous  the  sign- 
ing of  this  name  will  make  himself,  his  family  and 
friends."  And  with  a  smile  beaming  on  his  care-fur- 
rowed face,  he  signed  that  name  and  saved  that  life. 

The  generals  of  the  army  were  not  always  pleased 
with  his  calling  them,  so  familiarly,  "  my  generals," 
as  I  can  illustrate  by  an  incident.  Walking  up 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  one  evening  with  several  other 
members,  on  the  road  to  the  White  House,  a  courier 
who  had  just  dashed  across  the  Long  Bridge  hailed 
us,  and  told  us  the  news  he  was  taking  to  the  War 
Department.  It  seems  that  in  the  gray  of  that  very 
morning  a  rebel  raid  in  Falls  Church,  a  little  hamlet 
a  dozen  miles  away,  had  surprised  and  captured  a 
brigadier-general,  and  twelve  army  mules  had  got 
into  the  rebel  lines  before  they  could  be  recaptured. 
As  we  were  eoinof  to  the  Executive  Chamber,  we 
thought  we  would  tell  Mr.  Lincoln  the  news  in  ad- 
vance; but  he  said,  instantly  on  hearing  it ;  "  How 
unfortunate ;  I  can  fill  his  place  with  one  of  my  gen- 
erals in  five  minutes,  but  those  mules  cost  us  two 
hundred  dollars  apiece." 

Thaddeus   Stevens,   who    so  often    criticised  Mr. 


340  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  very  severely  for  not  being  aggressive  and 
destructive  enough,  used  to  tell,  with  great  gusto, 
this  story  of  his  own  personal  experience.  Mr. 
Stevens  had  gone  with  an  old  lady  from  Lancaster 
County,  Pennsylvania  (his  district),  to  the  White 
House,  to  ask  the  pardon  of  her  son,  condemned 
to  die  for  sleeping  on  his  post.  The  President  sud- 
denly turned  upon  his  cynical  Pennsylvania  friend, 
whom  he  knew  had  so  often  assailed  him  for  ex- 
cessive lenity,  and  said,  "  Now,  Thad,  what  v/ould 
you  do  in  this  case  if  you  happened  to  be  Presi- 
dent?" Mr.  Stevens  knew  how  many  hundreds  oi 
his  constituents  were  waiting  breathlessly  to  hear 
the  result  of  that  old  woman's  pilgrimage  to  Wash- 
ington. Of  course,  Congressmen  who  desired  to  be 
re-elected  liked  to  carry  out  the  desires  of  their 
constituents.  Stevens  did  not  relish  the  President's 
home-thrust,  but  replied  that,  as  he  knew  of  the  ex- 
tenuating circumstances,  he  would  certainly  pardon 
him.  "Well,  then,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  after  a  mo- 
ment's writing  in  silence,  "  here,  madam,  is  your  son's 
pardon."  Her  gratitude  filled  her  heart  to  over- 
flowing, and  it  seemed  to  her  as  though  her  son 
had  been  snatched  from  the  gateway  of  the  grave. 
She  could  only  thank  the  President  with  her  tears 
as  she  passed  out,  but  when  she  and  Mr.  Stevens 
had  reached  the  outer  door  of  the  White  House 
she    burst   out,  excitedly,   "  I    knew  it  was  a  lie  !    I 


BY  SCHUYLER   COLFAX. 


341 


knew  it  was  a  He  !  "  "  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked 
her  astonished  companion.  "  Why,  when  I  left  my 
country  home  in  old  Lancaster  yesterday,  the  neigh- 
bors told  me  that  I  would  find  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
an  ugly  man,  when  he  is  really  the  handsomest  man 
I  ever  saw  in  my  life."  And  certainly,  when  sym- 
pathy and  mercy  lightened  up  those  rugged  features, 
many  a  wife  and  mother  pleading  for  his  interven- 
tion had  reason  to  think  him  handsome  indeed. 

Another  historic  illustration  of  the  President's 
merciful  temper  had  less  excuse.  There  were  from 
time  to  time,  of  course,  instances  of  cowardice  in  the 
army  in  the  face  of  the  enemy — a  crime  justly 
punishable  by  the  laws  of  war  thoughout  the  world 
with  death.  In  the  earlier  years  of  the  war  all  the 
death  penalties  of  courts-martial  had  to  be  sent  up 
to  the  President,  as  commander-in-chief,  for  his  ap- 
proval. When  Judge  Holt,  the  Judge-Advocate- 
General  of  the  Army,  laid  the  first  case  before  the 
President,  and  explained  it,  he  replied,  "  Well,  I 
will  keep  this  a  few  days  until  I  have  more  time  to 
read  the  testimony."  That  seemed  quite  reasonable. 
When  the  Judge  explained  the  next  case,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln said,  "  I  must  put  this  by  until  I  can  settle  in 
my  mind  whether  this  soldier  can  better  serve  the 
country  dead  than  living." 

To  the  third,  he  answered,  "The  general  com- 
manding the  brigade  is  to   be  here  in  a  few   days 


342  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOIN 

to  consult  with  Stanton  and  myself  about  military 
matters  ;  I  will  wait  until  then,  and  talk  the  matter 
over  with  him," 

Finally,  there  was  a  very  flagrant  case  of  a  soldier 
who,  in  the  crisis  of  a  battle,  demoralized  his  regi- 
ment by  his  cowardice,  throwing  down  his  gun  and 
hiding  behind  the  friendly  stump.  When  tried  for 
his  cowardice  there  was  no  defense.  The  court- 
martial,  in  examining  his  antecedents,  found  that 
he  had  neither  father  nor  mother  living,  nor  wife 
nor  child  ;  that  he  was  unfit  to  wear  the  loyal  uni- 
form, and  that  he  was  a  thief  who  stole  continually 
from  his  comrades.  "  Here,"  said  Judge  Holt,  "is  a 
case  which  comes  exactly  within  your  requirements. 
He  does  not  deny  his  guilt  ;  he  will  better  serve 
the  country  dead  than  living,  as  he  has  no  relations 
to  mourn  for  him,  and  he  is  not  fit  to  be  in  the  ranks 
of  patriots,  at  any  rate."  Mr.  Lincoln's  refuge  of  ex- 
cuse was  all  swept  away.  Judge  Holt  expected,  of 
course,  that  he  would  write  "approved"  on  the 
paper ;  but  the  President,  running  his  long  fingers 
through  his  hair,  as  he  so  often  used  to  do  when  in 
anxious  thought,  replied,  "Well,  after  all.  Judge,  I 
think  I  must  put  this  with  my  leg  cases." 

"J^eg  cases,''  said  Judge  Holt,  with  a  frown  at  this 
supposed  levity  of  the  President,  in  a  case  of  life 
and  death.      "What  do  you  mean  by  /eg  cases,  sir?  " 

"  Why,  why,"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln,   "  do    you  see 


BV  SCHUYLER    COLFAX. 


those  papers  crowded  into  those  pigeon-holes  ? 
They  are  the  cases  that  you  call  by  that  long  title, 
'  cowardice  in  the  face  of  the  enemy/  but  I  call  them, 
for  short,  my  '  leg  cases.'  But  I  put  it  to  you,  and 
I  leave  it  for  you  to  decide  for  yourself :  if  Al- 
mighty God  gives  a  man  a  cowardly  pair  of  legs 
how  can  he  help  their  running  away  with  him  ?" 

Let  me  give  another  anecdote  bearing  on  the 
same  subject.  A  Congressman  went  up  to  the 
White  House  one  morning  on  business,  and  saw  in 
the  anteroom,  always  crowded  with  people  in  those 
days,  an  old  man,  crouched  all  alone  in  a  corner, 
crying  as  if  his  heart  would  break.  As  such  a  sight 
was  by  no  means  uncommon,  the  Congressman 
passed  into  the  President's  room,  transacted  his 
business,  and  went  away.  The  next  morning  he  was 
obliged  again  to  go  to  the  White  House,  and  he  saw 
the  same  old  man  crying,  as  before,  in  the  corner. 
He  stopped,  and  said  to  him,  "  What's  the  matter 
with  you,  old  man  ? "  The  old  man  told  him  the 
story  of  his  son  ;  that  he  was  a  soldier  in  the  Army 
of  the  James — General  Butler's  army — that  he  had 
been  convicted  by  a  court-martial  of  an  outrageous 
crime  and  sentenced  to  be  shot  next  week;  and  that 
his  Congressman  was  so  convinced  of  the  convicted 
man's  guilt  that  he  would  not  intervene.  "  Well," 
said  Mr.  Alley,  "  I  will  take  you  into  the  Executive 
Chamber  after  I  have  finished  my  business,  and  you 


^44  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

can  tell  Mr.  Lincoln  all  about  it.  On  being  intro- 
duced into  Mr.  Lincoln's  presence,  he  was  accosted 
with,  "Well,  my  old  friend,  what  can  I  do  for  you 
to-day?"  The  old  man  then  repeated  to  Mr,  Lin- 
coln what  he  had  already  told  the  Congressman  in 
the  anteroom.  A  cloud  of  sorrow  came  over  the 
President's  face  as  he  replied,  "  I  am  sorry  to  say  I 
can  do  nothing  for  you.  Listen  to  this  telegram 
received  from  General  Butler  yesterday  :  '  President 
Lincoln,  I  pray  you  not  to  interfere  with  the  courts- 
martial  of  the  army.  You  will  destroy  all  discipline 
among  our  soldiers,' — B,  F.  Butler." 

Every  word  of  this  dispatch  seemed  like  the  death 
knell  of  despair  to  the  old  man's  newly  awakened 
hopes.  Mr,  Lincoln  watched  his  grief  for  a  min- 
ute, and  then  exclaimed,  "  By  jingo,  Butler  or  no 
Butler,  here  goes  ! " — writing  a  few  words  and  hand- 
ing" them  to  the  old  man.  The  confidence  created 
by  Mr.  Lincoln's  words  broke  down  when  he  read — 
"  Job  Smith  is  not  to  be  shot  until  further  orders 
from  me, — Abraham  Lincoln." 

"Why,"  said  the  old  man,  "  I  thought  it  was  to 
be  a  pardon ;  but  you  say,  '  not  to  be  shot  till 
further  orders,'  and  you  may  order  him  to  be  shot 
next  week,"  Mr.  Lincoln  smiled  at  the  old  man's 
fears,  and  replied,  "  Well,  my  old  friend,  I  see  you 
are  not  very  well  acquainted  with  me.  If  your  son 
never  looks  on  death  till  further  orders  come  from 


BY  SCHUYLER    COLFAX. 


345 


me    to   shoot   him,  he  will    live   to  be  a  great   deal 
older  than  Methuselah." 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  came  into  the  Presidency,  he 
called  into  his  Cabinet  his  two  grreat  rivals  for  the 
nomination  at  Chicago,  as  Secretary  of  State  and  as 
Secretary  of  Treasury.  And  as  Mr.  Evarts,  in  his 
Dartmouth  oration  on  Mr.  Chase,  stated  most  justly, 
this  very  fact  proved,  beyond  all  question  and  con- 
troversy, that  nature  had  fitted  and  marked  Lincoln 
for  a  ruler  among  men  ;  that  only  accident  had 
hedged  his  early  life  in  Illinois  in  comparative  ob- 
scurity. Undoubtedly  Mr.  Evarts  but  anticipated 
the  impartial  and  unerring  verdict  of  history  when 
he  added,  that  the  presence  of  Seward  and  Chase,  in 
the  two  great  departments  of  State  and  Treasury, 
gave  to  the  nation  nearly  every  possible  benefit  that 
could  have  resulted  from  the  Presidency  of  either ; 
and  that  neither  of  these  two  great  political  leaders 
would  have  made  as  good  a  minister  under  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  other  as  they  both  did  under  the 
Presidency  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

In  1861,  Mr.  Lincoln  revised,  corrected  and  ex- 
punged Mr.  Seward's  letter  to  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  our  Minister  to  England,  on  the  most  im- 
portant foreign  question  of  the  war — belligerent 
rights — until  he  had  very  materially  changed  its  tone, 
scope  and  character.  The  venerable  Truman  Smith 
once  told  me  that,  after  examining  at  the  State  De- 


346  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

partment  the  original  draft  of  this  most  important 
foreign  state  paper,  in  the  well-known  handwriting 
of  Mr.  Seward,  and  the  changes,  corrections  and  in- 
terlineations in  the  well-known  handwriting  of  Lin- 
coln, he  believed  that  but  for  the  cautious  and  pru- 
dential changes  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  document,  as 
first  written,  would  have  involved  us  in  serious  dififi- 
culties  with  Great  Britain.  Yet,  when,  the  next  year 
after,  all  the  Republican  Senators  but  one  asked, 
through  Judge  Collamer,  that  he  should  change  this 
very  Secretary  of  State,  he  indignantly  refused  to 
allow  any  dictation  as  to  the  pe7^sonnel  of  his  admin- 
istration. 

When  the  nation  was  all  aflame  for  reprisals 
against  Great  Britain,  you  remember  how  he  calmed 
it  down  with  the  reply,  "  One  war  at  a  time  !  "  And 
thus  to  people  and  to  parties,  to  Senators  and  to 
Cabinets,  he  proved  himself,  unmistakably,  President 
in  fact,  as  well  as  President  in  title. 

Critics  have  arraigned  Mr.  Lincoln  for  lack  of 
dignity  ;  and  he  used  to  acknowledge,  in  reply,  that 
he  had  never  enjoyed  a  quarter's  education  in  any 
dignity  school  whatever.  While  his  Western  train- 
ing, so  full  as  it  had  been  of  independent  individual- 
ity, appeared  to  make  the  requirements  of  etiquette 
always  chafe  and  gall  him,  you  can  imagine  how 
astonished  was  Lord  Lyons,  the  stately  British  Min- 
ister, when  he  presented  the  autograph  letter  from 


BY  SCHUYLER    COLFAX.  347 

Queen  Victoria,  announcing,  as  is  the  custom  with 
European  monarchies,  the  marriage  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  and  adding  that  whatever  response  the  Presi- 
dent would  make  he  would  immediately  transmit  to 
his  royal  mistress.  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  instantly, 
by  shaking  the  marriage  announcement  at  the  bache- 
lor minister  before  him,  saying,  "  Lyons,  go  thou  and 
do  likewise." 

As  the  figure  of  this  man,  raised  up,  as  I  sincerely 
hope,for  our  great  national  exigency,  recedes  and  rises 
into  history,  we  see,  more  and  more  clearly, the  grand- 
eur of  its  proportions.  Conspicuous  among  the  ele- 
ments of  his  character  was  unflinching,  persistent,  in- 
flexible adherence  to  right,  without  shadow  of  turning. 
Forgiving  all  things  present,  he  only  hated  wrong  to 
man.  Closely  akin  to  this  was  his  conscience,  to  which 
test  he  brought  all  things  ;  by  which  he  was  always 
ruled  and  inspired.  From  his  mental  crucible,  came 
no  dross  nor  slag,  but  only  the  pure,  sterling  gold  of 
principle.  And  with  his  principles  thus  anchored, 
his  utterances  were  always  at  par.  The  strong  man 
and  the  water,  says  the  old  proverb,  channel  their 
own  paths,  and,  I  may  add,  often  channel  the  path- 
way for  others.  Without  the  bold,  impassionate  elo- 
quence of  a  Lovejoy,  or  the  ripe  classicism  of  an 
Evarts,  or  the  ornate  rhetoric  of  many  others,  he  was 
the  superior  of  them  all  in  clear,  logical,  cogent  state- 
ment of  issues,  and  of  the  principles  by  which  these 


34^  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

issues  were  defended  and  maintained.  As  was  Paul 
among  the  disciples,  he  seemed  the  master  logician 
among  them  all.  As  Lincoln  stated  these  issues,  so 
simply  and  yet  so  tersely  and  forcibly,  they  seemed 
to  carry  conviction  with  them  without  further  argu- 
ment, and  he  proved  himself  pre-eminently  of  all 
American  speakers  the  master  of  political  debate. 

Was  it  possible  to  define  more  aptly  and  more 
sharply  and  forcibly  his  opposition  to  what  was  called 
squatter  sovereignty  than  in  the  remarkably  con- 
densed statement  in  his  Peoria  speech  of  1854?  No 
politician,  no  statesman,  no  master  of  logic  in  the 
world  could  answer  him.  "When  the  white  man 
governs  himself,"  said  he,  "  that,  I  acknowledge,  is 
unquestionably  self-government  ;  but  when  the  white 
man  governs  himself  and  governs  another  man  be- 
sides, that  is  totally  different  from  self-government, 
and  that  I  call  despotism." 

How  clearly  he  settled  the  ever-recurring  conflict 
between  capital  and  labor  in  these  memorable  words  : 
"  Labor  was  prior  to  capital,  but  property  is  the  fruit 
of  labor.  Let  no  man,  therefore,  who  is  houseless, 
pull  down  the  house  of  another,  but  let  him  labor 
diligently  to  build  one  for  himself,  thus  assuring  that 
his  own  shall  be  safe  from  violence  when  built." 

How  he  clove  every  word  of  the  sophistries  by 
which  slavery  was  defended  when  he  said,  in  his 
Cooper    Institute    speech,   "  If    slavery  is    right,   all 


BY  SCHUYLER    COLFAX.  349 


laws  and  institutions  against  it  are  then  wrong,  and 
should  be  silenced  and  swept  away.  If  it  is  right,  we 
cannot  justly  object  to  its  nationality  and  univer- 
sality; but  if  it  is  wrong,  we  cannot  justly  insist  upon 


its  extension  and  enlargement." 


SCHUYLEPv  COLFAX. 


XIX. 

Daniel  W.  Voorhees. 

WHEN  I  was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, during  the  war,  there  lived  in 
the  county  of  Owen,  in  my  Congressional  District,  a 
gentleman  by  the  name  of  Bullitt,  related  to  the  well- 
known  family  of  that  name  in  Kentucky.  His  wife 
was  a  refined,  cultivated,  and  very  attractive  woman. 
They  were  in  moderate  circumstances,  but,  in  my 
travels  and  labors  in  their  vicinity,  I  often  partook 
of  their  warm  and  genial  hospitality.  Their  friend- 
ship for  me  was  constant  and  devoted,  and  I  was 
strongly  attached  to  them. 

One  gloomy,  dark  afternoon  in  the  winter  of 
1863-4,  while  seated  at  my  desk  in  the  House,  I 
received  Mr.  Bullitt's  card,  saying  he  was  at  the  east 
door  and  wished  to  see  me  immediately.  It  was 
almost  a  year  since  I  had  met  him,  and  I  at  once 
felt,  I  know  not  why,  an  ominous  dread  that  some 
calamity  had  overtaken  him.  The  moment  I  ap- 
proached him,  this  presentiment  became  a  certainty. 
His  wife  was  standing  by  his  side,  with  a  look  of 


352  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

terror  and  anguish,  which,  once  seen,  could  never  be 
forgotten.  Her  face  was  white,  her  Hps  apart,  and 
her  eyes  filled  with  an  expression  of  intense  fright, 
and  at  the  same  time,  intense  supplication  against 
some  impending  and  appalling  disaster.  They  had 
come  direct  from  the  depot  to  the  Capitol,  and  were 
travel-stained  and  without  rest.  We  sought  the 
shelter  of  a  committee  room,  and  there  I  heard  from 
Mr.  Bullitt,  aided  now  and  then  in  eager  but  sup- 
pressed tones  by  his  wife,  the  cause  of  their  hurried 
trip  to  Washington  and  of  their  deadly  alarm. 

Mrs.  Bullitt's  father  was  the  Rev.  Henry  M.  Luck- 
ett,  a  Methodist  minister,  then  over  seventy  years  of 
age.  He  had  preached  during  his  long  life  in  Illi- 
nois, Kentucky,  Missouri  and  elsewhere.  At  the 
time  the  rebellion  broke  out  he  was  living  at  St. 
Charles,  Missouri,  and  had  saved  up  quite  a  compe- 
tence for  his  old  age.  It  happened  that  his  means 
were  so  invested  and  situated  that  everything  he  had 
in  the  world  was  suddenly  lost  to  him.  The  blow 
prostrated  him.  He  was  not  physically  strong,  at 
best,  and  being  of  an  excitable  temperament,  his 
nervous  system  became  greatly  impaired,  and  finally 
broke  down.  His  mind  and  spirits  partook  of  his 
general  depression,  and  he  took  a  very  morbid  view 
of  his  condition  and  of  his  future.  He  was  exceed- 
ingly sensitive  about  being  dependent  on  any  one 
for  support,  and  soon  drifted  into  the  gloomy  belief 


BY  DANIEL    W.    VOORHEES.  353 

that  he  would  become  a  pauper  and  die  a  public 
charge.  These  ideas  were  combated  by  his  family 
and  friends,  but  they  deepened  their  hold  on  him 
until  he  was  really  a  monomaniac  on  that  subject, 
although  sound  on  all  others.  In  this  condition  he 
visited  a  niece  at  Memphis,  then  in  possession  of  the 
Federal  forces  under  command  of  General  Hurlbut. 
His  excited  and  unguarded  talk  on  the  subject  of  his 
losses  and  his  great  anxiety  to  repair  them,  if  possi- 
ble, soon  attracted  the  attention  of  certain  vigilant 
detectives  in  the  employ  of  the  government.  This 
old  man,  shattered  in  health  and  unbalanced  in  mind, 
was  not  a  difficult  subject  for  their  tact  and  skill. 
They  found  he  was  a  Southern  nian  by  birth,  and 
that  he  sympathized  with  the  trials  and  sufferings  of 
the  Southern  people.  They  assured  him  that  the 
Southern  people  were  at  that  time  in  the  most  ur- 
gent need  of  quinine  and  of  percussion  caps,  and 
would  pay  fabulous  prices  for  them  ;  that  there  was 
no  difficulty  in  trading  through  the  lines  ;  that  they 
would  put  up  the  necessary  amount  of  money,  o-o 
into  the  enterprise  with  him,  and  make  a  large  sum 
in  the  way  of  profits.  This  alluring  scheme  was 
successful  in  capturing  its  intended  victim.  The 
contraband  articles  were  procured,  a  wagon  with  a 
false  bottom  was  furnished  to  carry  them  to  the 
enemy,  and  when   all  the   details   of  the   plot  were 

ready,  Mr.  Luckett  was  arrested  by  his  accomplices, 

23 


354  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

loaded  with  irons,  and  speedily  tried  and  condemned 
by  a  military  court. 

At  this  stage  of  the  narrative,  which  I  have  given 
in  substance,  we  paused,  and  for  a  few  moments 
looked  at  each  other  in  silence. 

"  He  is  to  be  shot  to-morrow,"  said  Mr.  Bullitt, 
while  his  wife  shivered  as  with  a  chill.  "  We  have 
come,"  he  continued,  his  eyes  filling  with  tears, 
"knowing  you  will  help  us  if  you  can.  We  don't 
know  what  else  to  do,  nor  whether,  in  fact,  you  can 
do  anything.  Before  leaving  home  we  got  some 
papers  signed  by  those  who  know  Father  Luckett 
and  know  his  condition." 

With  this  he  handed  me  several  written  state- 
ments, hurriedly  gotten  up,  but  which  corroborated 
his  own  just  made  to  me.  It  was  then  four  o'clock, 
and  in  less  than  forty-eight  hours  this  man  was  to 
die,  and  I  felt  that  the  volley  of  death  poured  into 
his  breast  would  hardly  be  more  fatal  to  him  than  to 
his  devoted  daughter.  I  thought  rapidly,  and  yet 
for  some  minutes  I  could  strike  no  plan  in  my  own 
mind  which  promised  success.  There  was  no  time 
for  formal  application  to  the  War  Department  for 
mitigation  of  the  sentence,  and  if  there  had  been,  I 
knew  not  where  to  make  it  :  Stanton  was  Secretary 
of  War. 

I  saw  from  the  first  that  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  was 
our  only  hope.      I  knew  him  well.      During  the  first 


BY  DANIEL    IV.    VOORHEES. 


355 


eight  years  of  my  practice  in  the  courts  I  met  him 
very  often  and  in  all  kinds  of  litigation.  In  all  his 
intercourse  with  me,  both  before  and  after  he  be- 
came President,  he  was  very  courteous  and  kind, 
and  yet,  in  a  matter  so  grave  as  the  one  in  hand,  I 
doubted  and  hesitated  as  to  the  best  method  of  ap- 
proaching him.  It  was  a  period  of  great  distrust ; 
the  very  air  was  full  of  it,  and  the  offense  committed 
by  Mr.  Luckett  was  of  the  highest  character  and 
called  for  the  penalty  of  death,  unless  his  mental 
condition  and  the  conduct  of  the  detectives  made  the 
exercise  of  clemency  proper  and  necessary.  At  that 
time  the  Senators  from  Indiana  were  Henry  S.  Lane 
and  Thomas  A.  Hendricks.  I  had  known  Colonel 
Lane  from  my  boyhood  ;  had  studied  law  in  his 
office,  and  entertained  for  him  a  warm  and  enduring 
friendship.  He  was,  indeed,  a  charming  man  to  me, 
and  upon  finding  myself  his  colleague  in  Congress, 
he  in  the  Senate  and  I  in  the  House,  I  had  always 
gone  to  him  for  assistance,  and  never  in  vain,  in  all 
matters  not  of  a  political  character.  I  knew  his  re- 
lations with  Mr.  Lincoln  were  excellent,  and  I  de- 
termined to  ask  his  aid  in  behalf  of  the  unfortunate 
old  man  doomed  so  soon  to  die,  I  sought  him  at 
once  at  the  Senate  Chamber,  and  finding  that  body 
adjourned,  I  went  to  the  National  Hotel,  where 
Colonel  Lane  lived.  I  met  him  as  he  was  going  to 
dinner,  and  begged  him  to  allow  me  a  few  moments. 


^56  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

He  did  so,  and  listened  until  I  hurriedly  and  imper- 
fectly outlined  the  offense  for  which  Mr.  Luckett 
was  sentenced  to  death.  For  the  first  and  only 
time  in  his  life,  Colonel  Lane  replied  to  me  im- 
patiently and  in  a  tone  of  some  asperity  : 

"If  the  man,"  he  exclaimed,  "has  been  supplying 
the  rebels  with  ammunition  and  quinine,  I  would 
not  interfere  to  save  his  life  if  he  were  m.y  own 
brother." 

I  commenced  to  answer  with  the  circumstances 
which  mitigated  the  offense,  but  observing  his  irri- 
tated look,  I  desisted,  and  bidding  him  good  even- 
ing, withdrew. 

I  called  immediately  on  Mr.  Hendricks.  I  had  in- 
tended to  ask  him  to  go  with  Colonel  Lane  to  the 
President ;  now  I  was  compelled  to  ask  him  to  go 
without  his  colleague.  He  had  but  recently  entered 
the  Senate,  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  but  slightly,  and  was 
a  pronounced  Democrat ;  yet  his  high  ability,  per- 
fect integrity  and  courteous  bearing  had  already 
given  him  great  weight.  He  responded  warmly,  and 
without  a  moment's  hesitation,  to  my  appeal.  Agree- 
ing upon  the  hour  next  morning  when  a  carriage 
should  call  for  him,  I  next  turned  my  steps  toward 
the  lodgings  of  Colonel  William  R.  Morrison,  then, 
as  now,  a  member  of  the  House  from  Illinois.  I 
wanted  some  one  of  the  Illinois  delegation  to  assist 
me,  and  I  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  held  Colonel  Morrison 


BY  DANIEL    IV.    VOORHEES.  357 

in  very  high  estimation  as  a  man  of  sincerity,  cour- 
age, and  abihty.  Upon  reaching  his  room,  he  de- 
cided with  characteristic  promptitude  and  manhness 
to  be  one  of  the  party  to  call  on  the  President  on 
the  proposed  errand  of  mercy.  Then,  having  laid 
my  plans  as  well  as  I  could,  and  feeling  I  could  do 
no  more  that  night,  I  went  wearily  back  toward  my 
own  quarters. 

For  some  cause  which  I  do  not  now  remember,  I 
stopped  for  a  few  moments  in  the  office  of  the  Met- 
ropolitan Hotel.  It  must  have  been  eight  or  nine 
o'clock,  and  quite  a  large  crowd  was  there.  In  the 
midst  of  the  throng  I  observed,  with  surprise.  Col- 
onel Lane  moving  about  as  if  in  quest  of  some  one. 
Directly  he  saw  me,  and  approaching  said  : 

"  I  have  been  looking  for  you.  I  mentioned  the 
case  you  spoke  of  to  Mrs.  Lane  at  dinner,  and  I 
have  been  thinking  of  it  since.  I  don't  feel  satis- 
fied ;  come  with  me  to  my  room,  and  we  will  talk  it 
over." 

When  we  reached  his  room  he  took  the  papers  I 
had  in  my  possession,  read  them  with  care,  made 
some  severe  comments  on  detectives  inducing-  weak 
and  infirm  people  to  commit  crime,  and  reached  a 
very  decided  conclusion  that  this  was  not  a  proper 
case  for  the  death  penalty  to  be  inflicted. 

At  ten  o'clock  the  next  morning  two  carriages,  in 
a  heavy  rain,  drove  up  to  the   White  House  with  a 


358 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


party  of  six,  consisting  of  Senators  Lane  and  Hen- 
dricks, Colonel  Morrison,  Mr.  and  Mrs,  Bullitt  and 
myself.  Before  starting,  and  on  the  way,  I  sought 
to  reassure  Mrs.  Bullitt  by  telling  her  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  a  plain,  kind  man  ;  that  she  could  talk  to 
him  without  dread  or  awe,  and  that  I  wished  her  to 
do  so  in  her  own  way,  about  her  father,  as  soon  as 
she  could  get  a  chance.  Of  course  she  was  suffering 
great  distress  and  agitation,  but  her  self-control, 
under  the  circumstances,  was  admirable. 

We  ascended  the  stairs  and  filed  Into  the  Presi- 
dent's room.  As  we  entered,  I  saw  at  a  glance  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  that  sad,  preoccupied,  far-away  look 
I  had  so  often  seen  him  wear,  and  during  which  it 
was  difficult  at  times  to  engage  his  attention  to  pass- 
ing events.  As  we  approached  he  slowly  turned  to 
us,  inclined  his  head  and  spoke.  Senator  Lane  at 
once.  In  his  rapid,  nervous  style,  explained  the  occa- 
sion of  our  call,  and  made  known  our  reasons  for 
asking  Executive  clemency.  While  he  was  talking 
Mr.  Lincoln  looked  at  him  In  a  patient,  tired  sort  of 
way,  but  not  as  if  he  was  struck  with  the  sensibilities 
of  the  subject  as  we  were.  When  the  Senator  ceased 
speaking  there  was  no  immediate  response  ;  on  the 
contrary,  rather  an  awkward  pause.  My  heart  beat 
fast,  for  in  that  pause  was  now  my  great  hope,  and  I 
was  not  disappointed.  Mrs.  Bullitt  had  taken  a  seat 
on  coming  in  not  far  from  the  President,  and  now,  in 


BY  DANIEL    IV.     VOORIIEES.  359 

quivering  but  distinct  tones,  she  spoke,  addressing 
him  as  "  Mr.  Lincoln."  He  turned  to  her  with  a 
grave,  benignant  expression,  and  as  he  Hstened  his 
eye  lost  that  distant  look,  and  his  face  grew  animated 
with  a  keen  and  vivid  interest.  The  little  pale-faced 
woman  at  his  side  talked  wonderfully  well  for  her 
father's  life,  and  her  eyes  pleaded  even  more  elo- 
quently than  her  tongue.  Suddenly,  and  while  she 
was  talking,  Mr.  Lincoln,  turning  to  Senator  Lane, 
exclaimed  : 

'•  Lane,  what  did  you  say  this  man's  name  was  ?" 

"  Luckett,"  answered  the  Senator. 

"Not  Henry  M.  Luckett?"  quickly  queried  the 
President. 

"Yes,"  interposed  Mrs.  Bullitt;  "my  father's 
name  is  Henry  M.  Luckett." 

"  Why,  he  preached  in  Springfield  years  ago, 
didn't  he?"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  now  all  animation  and 
interest. 

"  Yes,  my  father  used  to  preach  In  Springfield," 
replied  the  daughter. 

"  Well,  this  Is  wonderful ! "  Mr.  Lincoln  remarked  ; 
and  turning  to  the  party  in  front  of  him  he  continued : 
"  I  knew  this  man  well  ;  I  have  heard  him  preach  ; 
he  was  a  tall,  angular  man  like  I  am,  and  I  have  been 
mistaken  for  him  on  the  streets.  Did  you  say  he 
was  to  be  shot  day  after  to-morrow  ?  No,  no ! 
There  will  be  no  shooting  nor  hanging  in  this  case. 


360  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLxV 

Henry  M.  Luckett !  There  must  be  something 
wrong  with  him,  or  he  wouldn't  be  in  such  a  scrape 
as  this.  I  don't  know  what  more  I  can  do  for  him, 
but  you  can  rest  assured,  my  child,"  turning  to  Mrs. 
Bullitt,  "that  your  father's  life  is  safe." 

He  touched  a  bell  on  his  table,  and  the  telegraph 
operator  appeared  from  an  adjoining  room.  To  him 
Mr.  Lincoln  dictated  a  dispatch  to  General  Hurlbut, 
directing  him  to  suspend  the  execution  of  Henry  M. 
Luckett  and  await  further  orders  in  the  case. 

As  we  thanked  him  and  took  our  leave,  he  re- 
peated, as  if  to  himself  : 

"  Henry  M,  Luckett !  No,  no  !  There  is  no 
shooting  or  hanging  in  this  case." 

With  what  feelings  we  all  left  his  presence  ;  how 
the  woman's  heart  bore  its  great  flood  of  joy  and  its 
sudden  revulsion  from  the  depths  of  fear  and  de- 
spair ;  how  she  sobbed  and  laughed,  and  how  tears 
and  smiles  were  in  her  bright  face  together  ;  how  in 
broken  words  and  choking  voice,  she  tried  to  pour 
out  her  unutterable  gratitude  to  Abraham  Lincoln  ; 
how  some  of  the  party  returning  in  the  same  car- 
riage with  her  and  her  husband  were  almost  as 
deeply  moved  as  she  was  ;  how  all  these  things  and 
others  occurred  in  the  swift  transition  from  deep  dis- 
tress and  overwhelming  dread  to  happiness  and  se- 
curity, cannot  now  be  told.  Perhaps  they  were 
recorded  at  the  time  somewhere  else. 


BY  DANIEL    W.    VOORHEES.  36 1 

Two  or  three  months  later,  the  object  of  all  our 
solicitude  and  labors  was  released  and  sent  North  to 
his  friends.  I  saw  him  but  once.  The  first  use  he 
made  of  his  liberty  was  to  travel,  poor  as  he  was,  to 
Washington  to  express  his  gratitude  for  his  preser- 
vation from  a  violent  and  ignominious  death.  He 
called  me  from  my  seat  in  the  House,  and  I  met 
him  exactly  where  I  had  met  those  who  came  to  inter- 
cede for  his  life  a  little  while  before.  He  was  a  tall, 
spare  old  man,  with  an  excited,  startled,  haunted  ex- 
pression of  face.  He  wanted  to  call  and  thank  the 
President  in  person  for  his  great  kindness,  but  the 
circumstances  at  the  time  were  not  favorable  to  such 
a  call  and  it  was  not  made.  He  remained  with  me 
not  more  than  fifteen  minutes,  and  then  in  the  hur- 
ried manner  of  one  who  has  much  to  do  and  whose 
time  is  short,  he  moved  away,  and  I  saw  him  no 
more. 

The  incident  I  have  related  occurred  twenty-one 
years  ago,  and  of  the  nine  actors  mentioned  in  it, 
but  three  remain  to  mingle  in  the  affairs  of  life. 
Mr.  Luckett  soon  slept  with  his  fathers,  and,  sad  to 
realize,  he  has  been  followed  to  the  grave  by  his 
faithful-hearted  daughter  and  her  kind  and  generous 
husband.  General  Hurlbut  died  in  a  foreign  land, 
while  in  the  diplomatic  service  of  his  government. 
Henry  S.  Lane,  full  of  years  and  of  honors,  rests 
from  the  labors  of  earth  in  the  midst  of  the  people 


^62  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

who  knew  and  loved  him  from   the  earhest  to  the 
latest  days  of  his  manhood. 

Lincoln,  in  the  hour  of  his  greatest  glory,  in  the 
very  zenith  of  his  success  and  fame,  was  transferred, 
as  it  were,  in  tlie  twinkling  of  an  eye,  by  red-handed 
murder,  to  the  immortal  pages  of  never-ending  his- 
tory. How  the  memory  of  his  kind  acts,  his  gentle 
deeds  of  charity  and  of  mercy,  plead  against  the 
deep  damnation  of  his  taking  off. 

Governor  Hendricks,  as  we  in  Indiana  always 
style  him,  is  the  beloved  and  honored  Vice-Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  Colonel  Morrison  re- 
mains one  of  the  strong,  controlling  men  of  the 
House;  and  I  live  to  rescue, from  the  fast-gathering 
mists  of  the  past,  the  history  of  this  very  informal, 
but  at  the  same  time  very  touching  and  characteris- 
tic act  of  Executive  clemency. 

DANIEL  W.  VOORHEES. 


XX. 

Charles  A.  Dana- 

THE  first  time  I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  was  shortly 
after  his  inauguration.  He  had  appointed  Mr. 
Seward  to  be  his  Secretary  of  State,  and  some  of  the 
Republican  leaders  of  New  York,  who  had  been  in- 
strumental in  preventing  Mr.  Seward's  nomination 
to  the  Presidency  and  in  securing  that  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, had  begun  to  fear  that  they  would  be  left  out 
in  the  cold  in  the  distribution  of  the  offices.  General 
James  S.  Wadsworth,  George  Opdyke,  Lucius  Rob- 
inson, T.  B.  Carroll,  and  Henry  B.  Stanton  were 
among  the  number  of  these  gentlemen.  Their  appre- 
hensions were  somewhat  mitigated  by  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Chase,  to  whom  we  were  all  friendly,  was  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury.  But,  notwithstanding,  they 
were  afraid  that  the  superior  tact  and  pertinacity  of 
Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Weed  would  get  the  upper  hand, 
and  that  the  power  of  the  Federal  Administration 
would  be  put  into  the  control  of  the  rival  faction. 
Accordingly,  several  of  them  determined  to  go  to 
Washington,  and  I  was  asked  to  go  with  them. 
I  believe  the  appointment  for  our  interview  with 


364  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  President  was  made  through  Mr.  Chase  ;  but  at 
any  rate  we  all  went  up  to  the  White  House  together, 
except  Mr.  Stanton,  who  stayed  away  because  he  was 
himself  an  applicant  for  office. 

Mr.  Lincoln  received  us  in  the  large  room  up-stairs 
in  the  east  wing  of  the  White  House,  where  the  Pres- 
ident had  his  working  office,  and  stood  up  while 
General  Wadsworth,  who  was  our  principal  spokes- 
man, and  Mr.  Opdyke,  stated  what  was  desired. 
After  the  interview  was  begun  a  big  Indianian,  who 
was  a  messenger  in  attendance  in  the  White  House, 
came  into  the  room  and  said  to  the  President : 

"  She  wants  you." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln  without  stirring. 

Soon  afterward  the  messenger  returned  again,  ex- 
claiming : 

"  I  say  she  wants  you  ! " 

The  President  was  evidently  annoyed,  but  instead 
of  going  out  afi:er  the  messenger  he  remarked  to  us  : 

*'  One  side  shall  not  gobble  up  everything.  Make 
out  a  list  of  the  places  and  men  you  want,  and  I  will 
endeavor  to  apply  the  rule  of  give  and  take." 

General  Wadsworth  answered  : 

"  Our  party  will  not  be  able  to  remain  in  Wash- 
ington, but  we  will  leave  such  a  list  with  Mr.  Carroll, 
and  whatever  he  agrees  to  will  be  agreeable  to  us." 

Mr.  Lincoln  continued,  "  Let  Mr.  Carroll  come  in 
to-morrow  and  we  will  see  what  can  be  done." 


BY   CHARLES  A.   DANA.  265 

This  is  the  substance  of  the  interview,  and  what 
most  impressed  me  was  the  evident  fairness  of  the 
President.  We  all  felt  that  he  meant  to  do  what  was 
right  and  square  in  the  matter.  While  he  was  not 
the  man  to  promote  factious  quarrels  and  difficulties 
within  his  party,  he  did  not  intend  to  leave  in  the 
lurch  the  friends  through  whose  exertions  his  nomi- 
nation and  election  had  finally  been  brought  about. 
At  the  same  time  he  understood  perfectly  that  we 
and  our  associates  in  the  Republican  body  had  not 
gone  to  Chicago  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  him, 
or  of  nominating  any  one  in  particular,  but  only  to 
beat  Mr.  Seward,  and  to  do  the  best  that  could  be 
done  as  regards  the  selection  of  the  candidate. 

Two  years  later  I  entered  the  service  of  the  War 
Department,  and  from  that  time  until  the  close  of 
the  rebellion  I  had  constant  opportunities  of  seeing 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  of  conversing  with  him  in  the 
cordial  and  unofficial  manner  which  he  always  pre- 
ferred. Not  that  there  was  ever  any  lack  of  dignity 
in  the  man.  Even  in  his  freest  moments  one  al- 
ways felt  the  presence  of  a  will  and  an  intellectual 
power  which  maintained  the  ascendency  of  the  Pres- 
ident. He  never  posed  or  put  on  airs  or  attempted 
to  make  any  particular  impression  ;  but  he  was  al- 
ways conscious  of  his  own  ideas  and  purposes,  even 
in  his  most  unreserved  moments. 

In  one  of  the  interesting  passages  which  occurred 


366  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

during  this  period,  I  was  not  myself  either  a  prin- 
cipal actor  or  a  personal  witness,  but  I  knew  all 
about  it. 

My  friend  and  colleague,  the  Hon.  Peter  H.  Wat- 
son, who  was  the  earliest  Assistant  Secretary  of  War 
appointed  by  Mr.  Stanton,  had  caught  some  quarter- 
masters in  extensive  frauds  in  forage  furnished  to  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac.  The  mode  of  the  fraud  con- 
sisted in  a  dishonest  mixture  of  oats  and  Indian  corn 
for  the  horses  and  mules  of  the  army.  By  changing 
the  proportions  of  the  two  sorts  of  grain,  they  were 
able  to  make  a  great  difference  in  the  cost  of  the 
bushel,  and  it  was  quite  difficult  to  detect  the  cheat. 
However,  Watson  found  it  out  and  at  once  arrested 
the  two  officers  who  were  most  directly  involved. 
They  soon  surrendered  a  large  sum  of  money.  If 
my  memory  serves  me  correctly,  they  returned 
$175,000  from  the  product  of  the  swindle.  They 
were  men  of  some  political  importance  about  Lycom- 
ing, and  eminent  politicians  took  a  hand  in  getting 
them  out  of  the  scrape.  Among  these  the  Hon. 
David  Wilmot,  then  Senator  of  the  United  States 
and  author  of  the  famous  Wilmot  Proviso,  was  very 
active.  He  went  to  Mr.  Lincoln  and  made  such 
representations  and  appeals  that  finally  the  Presi- 
dent consented  to  go  with  him  over  to  the  War  De- 
partment and  see  Watson  in  his  office.  Wilmot  re- 
mained outside,   and  Mr.   Lincoln  went  in  to  labor 


BY  CHARLES  A.    DANA.  -^(ij 

with  the  Assistant  Secretary.  Watson  eloquently 
described  to  him  the  nature  of  the  fraud  and  the  ex- 
tent to  which  it  had  already  been  developed  by  his 
partial  investigation.  The  fact  that  $175,000  had 
been  refunded  by  the  guilty  men  was  dwelt  upon, 
and  when  the  President  urged  the  safety  of  the  cause 
and  the  necessity  of  preserving  united  the  powerful 
support  which  Pennsylvania  was  giving  to  the  Ad- 
ministration in  suppressing  the  rebellion,  Watson 
answered  : 

"  Very  well,  Mr.  President,  if  you  wish  to  have 
these  men  released,  all  that  is  necessary  is  to  give 
the  order  ;  but  I  shall  ask  to  have  it  in  writing.  In 
such  a  case  as  this  it  would  not  be  safe  for  me  to 
obey  a  verbal  order  ;  and  let  me  add  that,  if  you  do 
release  them,  the  fact  and  the  reason  will  necessarily 
become  known  to  the  public." 

Finally  Mr.  Lincoln  took  up  his  hat  and  went 
out,  and  when  Wilmot,  Avho  was  waiting  in  the  cor- 
ridor, met  him,  he  said  : 

"  I  can't  do  anything  with  Watson  ;  he  won't  re- 
lease them." 

The  reply  which  the  Senator  made  to  this  remark 
cannot  be  printed  here,  but  it  did  not  affect  the 
judgment  of  the  President.  The  men  were  retained 
for  a  long  time  afterward.  The  fraud  was  fully  in- 
vestigated, and  future  swindles  of  the  kind  were 
rendered  impossible.      If  Watson  could  have  had  his 


2,68  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

way,  the  guilty  parties — and  there  were  some  whose 
names  never  got  to  the  pubhc — would  have  been 
,  tried  by  court-martial  and  sternly  dealt  with.  But 
all  my  reflections  upon  the  subject  since  lead  me  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  moderation  of  the  President 
was  wiser  than  the  unrelenting  justice  of  the  As- 
sistant Secretary  would  have  been. 

Another  incident  connected  with  Pennsylvania  re- 
curs to  my  memory  which  interested  me  greatly  at 
that  time  as  showing  the  habitual  breadth  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  judgment  and  action. 

In  the  spring  of  1864  some  question  arose  about 
affairs  in  that  State,  and,  Mr.  Stanton  being  absent, 
Mr.  Lincoln  sent  for  me.  I  found  Mr.  Seward  with 
him  in  the  President's  room.  Mr.  Lincoln  entered 
at  once  upon  the  subject,  and  Mr.  Seward  said,  "My 
advice  is  to  send  for  Aleck  McClure."  After  a  few 
words  between  them  on  the  subject,  and  the  reiter- 
ated expression  of  Mr.  Seward's  opinion,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln said,  "We  will  do  it,"  and  asked  Mr.  Seward 
to  forward  the  necessary  telegram.  Then  he  turned 
to  me,  "What  do  you  say,  Dana?"  "Well,  sir,"  I 
replied,  "  McClure  is  very  good,  but  I  would  sug- 
gest that  it  would  be  well  to  send  for  Wayne  Mac- 
Veagh  also."  Mr.  Seward  thought  this  would  not 
be  necessary,  and  I  took  my  leave  with  the  impres- 
sion that  my  advice  was  not  to  be  heeded.  Next 
morning,  however,   MacVeagh  came  into  my  office. 


BV  CHARLES  A.    DANA.  369 

"Did  Mr.  Lincoln  send  for  you  ?  "  I  asked.  "Yes, 
he  did,"  was  the  answer,  "  and  I  think  it  will  be  all 
right ;  "  and  so  it  was.  The  cause  of  anxiety  proved 
to  be  more  than  half  imaginary. 

The  relations  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  mem- 
bers of  his  Cabinet  were  always  friendly  and  sincere 
on  his  part.  He  treated  every  one  of  them  with  un- 
varying kindness  ;  but  though  several  of  them  were 
men  of  extraordinary  force  and  self-assertion — this  is 
true  especially  of  Mr.  Seward,  Mr.  Chase,  and  Mr. 
Stanton — and  though  there  was  nothing  of  selfhood 
or  domination  in  his  manner  toward  them,  it  was 
always  plain  that  he  was  the  master  and  they  the 
subordinates.  They  constantly  had  to  yield  to  his 
will,  and  if  he  ever  yielded  to  theirs  it  was  because 
they  convinced  him  that  the  course  they  advised  was 
judicious  and  appropriate.  I  fancied  during  the 
whole  time  of  my  intimate  intercourse  with  him  and 
with  them  that  he  was  always  prepared  to  receive  the 
resignation  of  any  one  of  them  ;  and  at  the  same 
time  I  do  not  recollect  a  single  occasion  when  either 
of  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  had  got  his  mind  ready 
to  quit  his  post  from  any  feeling  of  dissatisfaction 
with  the  orders  or  the  conduct  of  the  President. 

In  the  beginning  of  May,  Grant  moved  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  across  the  Rappahannock  and  fought 
the  battle  of  the  Wilderness.      For  two  days  we  had 

no   authentic  news    in   Washington,   and    both    Mr. 

24 


370  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  and  the  Secretary  of  War  were  very  much 
troubled  about  it.  One  night  at  about  ten  o'clock  I 
was  sent  for  to  the  War  Department,  and  on  reaching 
the  office  I  found  the  President  and  the  Secretary 
together. 

"  We  are  greatly  disturbed  in  mind,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  "because  Grant  has  been  fighting  two  days 
and  we  are  not  getting  any  authentic  account  of  what 
has  happened  since  he  moved.  W^e  have  concluded 
to  send  you  down  there.  How  soon  will  you  be 
ready  to  start  ? " 

"  I  will  be  ready,"  I  said,  "  in  half  an  hour,  and  will 
get  off  just  as  soon  as  a  train  and  an  escort  can  be 
got  ready  at  Alexandria." 

"Very  good,"  said  the  President;  "go  then,  and 
God  bless  you." 

I  at  once  made  the  necessary  preparations  and  gave 
orders  for  a  train  from  Alexandria  to  the  Rappahan- 
nock. At  the  appointed  time,  just  before  midnight, 
I  was  on  board  the  cars  in  Maryland  Avenue,  which 
were  to  take  me  and  my  horse  to  Alexandria,  when 
an  orderly  rode  up  in  haste  to  say  that  the  President 
wanted  to  see  me  at  the  War  Department.  Riding 
there  as  fast  as  I  could  I  found  the  President  still 
there. 

"Since  you  went  away,"  said  he,  "I  have  been 
feeling  very  unhappy  about  it.  I  don't  like  to  send 
you  down  there.    We  hear  that  Jeb  Stewart's  cavalry 


BY  CHARLES  A.    DANA. 


Zl^ 


is  riding  all  over  the  region  between  the  Rappahan- 
nock and  the  Rapidan,  and  I  don't  want  to  expose 
you  to  the  danger  you  will  have  to  meet  before  you 
can  reach  Grant." 

"Mr.  Lincoln,"  I  said,  "I  have  got  a  first-rate 
horse,  and  twenty  cavalrymen  are  in  readiness  at 
Alexandria.  If  we  meet  a  small  force  of  Stewart's 
people,  we  can  fight,  and  if  they  are  too  many,  they 
will  have  to  have  mighty  good  horses  to  catch  us." 

"But  are  you  not  concerned  about  it  at  all?" 
said  he. 

"  No,  sir,"  said  I,  "  don't  feel  any  hesitation  on 
my  account.  Besides  it  is  getting  late,  and  I  want 
to  get  down  to  the  Rappahannock  by  daylight." 

"  All  right,"  said  he  ;  "  if  you  feel  that  way,  I  won't 
keep  you  any  longer.     Good-night,  and  good-by." 

Another  side  of  this  remarkable  character  was 
illustrated  on  the  evening  of  election  day  in  Novem- 
ber. The  political  struggle  had  been  most  intense, 
and  the  interest  taken  in  it,  both  in  the  White  House 
and  in  the  War  Department,  had  been  almost  pain- 
ful. All  the  power  and  influence  of  the  War  De- 
partment, then  something  enormous  from  the  vast 
expenditure  and  extensive  relations  of  the  war,  had 
been  employed  to  secure  the  re-election  of  Mr. 
Lincoln ;  and  after  the  arduous  toil  of  the  canvass 
there  was  necessarily  a  great  suspense  of  feeling 
until  the  result  of  the  votingr  should  be  ascertained 


'^']2  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  went  over  to  the  War  Department  about  half-past 
eight  in  the  evening  and  found  the  President  and 
Mr.  Stanton  together  in  the  Secretary's  office. 
General  Eckert,  who  then  had  charge  of  the  tele- 
graph department  of  the  War  Office,  was  coming  in 
continually  with  telegrams  containing  election  re- 
turns. Mr.  Stanton  would  read  them  and  the 
President  would  look  at  them  and  comment  upon 
them.  Presently  there  came  a  lull  in  the  returns, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  called  me  up  to  a  place  by  his  side. 

"  Dana,"  said  he,  "  have  you  ever  read  any  of  the 
writings  of  Petroleum  V.  Nasby  ? "  "No,  sir,"  I 
said,  "  I  have  only  looked  at  some  of  them,  and  they 
seemed  to  me  quite  funny." 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  let  me  read  you  a  specimen," 
and,  pulling  out  a  thin  yellow-covered  pamphlet  from 
his  breast-pocket,  he  began  to  read  aloud.  Mr. 
Stanton  viewed  this  proceeding  with  great  im- 
patience, as  I  could  see,  but  Mr.  Lincoln  paid  no 
attention  to  that.  He  would  read  a  page  or  a  story, 
pause  to  con  a  new  election  telegram,  and  then  open 
the  book  again  and  go  ahead  with  a  new  passage. 
Finally  Mr.  Chase  came  in  and  presently  Mr.  White- 
law  Reid,  and  then  the  reading  was  interrupted. 
Mr.  Stanton  went  to  the  door  and  beckoned  me  into 
the  next  room.  I  shall  never  forget  the  fire  of  his 
indignation  at  what  seemed  to  him  to  be  mere 
nonsense.       The  idea  that  when   the  safety  of  the 


BY   CHARLES  A.  DANA.  '^'] ^ 

Republic  was  thus  at  issue,  when  the  control  of  an 
empire  was  to  be  determined  by  a  few  figures  brought 
in  by  the  telegraph,  the  leader,  the  man  most  deeply 
concerned,  not  merely  for  himself  but  for  his  country, 
could  turn  aside  to  read  such  balderdash  and  to  lauo^h 
at  such  frivolous  jests,  was  to  his  mind  something 
most  repugnant  and  damnable.  He  could  not  un- 
derstand, apparently,  that  it  was  by  the  relief  which 
these  jests  afforded  to  the  strain  of  mind  under 
which  Lincoln  had  so  long  been  living  and  to  the 
natural  gloom  of  a  melancholy  and  desponding  tem- 
perament— this  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  prevailing  charac- 
teristic— that  the  safety  and  sanity  of  his  intelligence 
was  maintained  and  preserved. 

Another  interesting  incident  occurs  to  me.  A  spy 
whom  we  employed  to  report  to  us  the  proceedings 
of  the  Confederate  Government  and  its  agents,  and 
who  passed  continually  between  Richmond  and  St. 
Catherines,  reporting  at  the  War  Department  upon 
the  way,  had  come  in  from  Canada  and  had  put  into 
my  hands  an  important  dispatch  from  Mr.  Clement 
C.  Clay,  Jr.,  addressed  to  Mr.  Benjamin.  Of  course 
the  seal  was  broken  and  the  paper  read  immediately. 
It  showed  unequivocally  that  the  Confederate  agents 
in  Canada  were  making  use  of  that  country  as  a 
starting  point  for  warlike  raids  which  were  to  be 
directed  against  frontier  towns  like  St.  Albans  in 
Vermont.      Mr.   Stanton  thought  it   important  that 


374  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

this  dispatch  should  be  retained  as  a  ground  of  re- 
clamation to  be  addressed  to  the  British  Govern- 
ment. It  was  on  a  Sunday  that  it  arrived,  and  he 
was  confined  to  his  house  by  a  cold.  At  his  direc- 
tions I  went  over  to  the  President  and  made  an 
appointment  with  him  to  be  at  the  Secretary's  office 
after  church.  At  the  appointed  time  he  was  there, 
and  I  read  the  dispatch  to  them.  Mr.  Stanton 
stated  the  reasons  why  it  should  be  retained,  and 
before  deciding  the  question  Mr.  Lincoln  turned  to 
me,  saying  : 

"Well,  Dana?" 

I  observed  to  them  that  this  was  a  very  important 
channel  of  communication,  and  that  if  we  stopped 
such  a  dispatch  as  this  it  was  at  the  risk  of  never  ob- 
taining any  more  information  through  that  means. 

"  Oh,"  said  the  President,  "  I  think  you  can  man- 
age that.  Capture  the  messenger,  take  the  dispatch 
from  him  by  force,  put  him  in  prison,  and  then  let 
him  escape.  If  he  has  made  Benjamin  and  Clay  be- 
lieve his  lies  so  far,  he  won't  have  any  difficulty  in 
telling  them  new  ones  that  will  answer  for  this  case." 
This  direction  was  obeyed.  The  paper  was  sealed 
up  again  and  was  delivered  to  its  bearer.  General 
Auo-ur,  who  commanded  the  District,  was  directed  to 
look  for  a  Confederate  messenger  at  such  a  place  on 
the  road  south  that  evening.  The  man  was  arrested, 
brought  to  the  War  Department,  searched,  the  paper 


BY  CHARLES  A.    DANA.  375 

found  upon  him  and  identified,  and  he  was  committed 
to  the  Old  Capitol  Prison.  He  made  his  escape 
about  a  week  later,  being  fired  upon  by  the  guard. 
A  large  reward  for  his  capture  was  advertised  in  va- 
rious papers  East  and  West,  and  when  he  reached 
St.  Catherines  with  his  arm  in  a  sling,  wounded  by  a 
bullet  which  had  passed  through  it,  his  story  was  be- 
lieved by  Messrs.  Clay  and  Jacob  Thompson,  or,  at 
any  rate,  if  they  had  any  doubts  upon  the  subject, 
they  were  not  strong  enough  to  prevent  his  carrying 
their  messages  afterward. 

The  last  time  I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  to  speak  with  him 
was  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  of  his  murder.  The 
same  Jacob  Thompson  was  the  subject  of  our  con- 
versation. I  had  received  a  report  from  the  Provost 
Marshal  of  Portland,  Maine,  saying  that  Mr.  Thomp- 
son was  to  be  in  that  town  that  night  for  the  purpose 
of  taking  the  steamer  for  Liverpool ;  and  what  orders 
had  the  Department  to  give  ?  I  carried  the  telegram 
to  Mr.  Stanton.  He  said  promptly,  "  Arrest  him  ;  " 
but  as  I  was  leaving  his  room,  he  called  me  back, 
adding,  "  You  had  better  take  it  over  to  the  Presi- 
dent." It  was  now  between  four  and  five  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon,  and  business  at  the  White  House  was 
completed  for  the  day.  I  found  Mr.  Lincoln  with 
his  coat  off  in  a  closet  attached  to  his  office  washing 
his  hands.  "  Halloo,  Dana,"  said  he,  as  I  opened 
the  door,   "what  is  it  now?"     "Well,  sir,"   I   said, 


37^  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  here  is  the  Provost  Marshal  of  Portland,  who  re- 
ports that  Jacob  Thompson  is  to  be  in  that  town  to- 
night, and  inquires  what  orders  we  have  to  give." 
*'  What  does  Stanton  say  ? "  he  asked.  "  Arrest  him," 
I  replied.  "  Well,"  he  continued,  drawling  his  words, 
"  I  rather  guess  not.  When  you  have  an  elephant 
on  hand,  and  he  wants  to  run  away,  better  let  him 
run." 

This  answer  I  carried  back  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, and,  accordingly,  no  reply  was  sent  to  the 
Provost  Marshal.  That  night  Mr.  Lincoln  was  shot, 
and  in  the  room  adjoining  the  small  chamber  in  which 
he  lay  unconscious  and  breathing  heavily,  Mr.  Stan- 
ton, the  only  member  of  the  Administration  who 
seemed  to  retain  his  self-possession  and  undiminished 
energy,  gave  all  the  orders  for  hours  that  seemed 
necessary  to  carry  on  the  government.  I  left  him 
at  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  went  home  to 
sleep.  But  at  five  o'clock  Colonel  Pelouse  knocked 
at  my  front  door.  Opening  the  window,  I  asked, 
"  What  is  it  ?  "  "  Mr.  Dana,"  said  he,  ''  Mr.  Lincoln 
is  dead,  and  Mr.  Stanton  directs  you  to  arrest  Jacob 
Thompson." 

The  order  was  sent  to  Portland,  but  Thompson 
did  not  come  there.  Some  years  afterward  he  told 
me  that  he  had  thought  it  safer  to  go  to  England  by 
way  of  Halifax. 

CHARLES  A.  DANA. 


XXI. 

John  A.  Kasson. 

PRIOR  to  Lincoln's  election  as  President  I  never 
met  him — not,  indeed,  until  after  he  sent  my 
name  to  the  Senate  for  the  post  of  First  Assistant- 
Postmaster-General.  I  think  this  was  the  second 
nomination  he  sent  to  that  body.  Afterward  I  had 
frequent  occasion  to  see  him,  both  during  the  period 
of  that  service  and  during  my  subsequent  congres- 
sional service,  but  almost  wholly  on  official  busi- 
ness. 

From  the  President's  room  in  the  White  House 
you  can  see  prominent  objects  in  Alexandria,  six 
miles  down  the  Potomac.  The  one  prominent  object 
which  then  for  days  attracted  and  offended  the 
patriot's  eye  from  those  windows,  was  the  rebel  flag 
floating  from  the  staff  on  the  roof  of  the  hotel  in 
that  city,  as  if  in  defiance  of  the  national  Capitol,  a 
few  miles  away.  President  Lincoln's  young  neigh- 
bor of  Springfield,  111.,  Ellsworth,  mounted  alone  to 
the  roof,  cut  it  down,  and  was  himself  killed  by  the 
rebel  owner  as  he  descended  the  staircase.  I  called 
on  the  President  just  after  that  occurrence,  and  con- 


378  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

gratulated  him,  as  I  stood  by  the  window,  on  the  im- 
proved view  down  the  Potomac,  where,  instead  of 
the  Confederate,  the  Union  flag  now  floated.  I  was 
taken  aback  by  Mr.  Lincohi's  joyless  response,  "Yes, 
but  it  was  at  a  terrible  cost ! "  and  the  tears  rushed 
into  his  eyes  as  he  said  it.  It  was  his  first  per- 
sonal realization  of  what  the  war  meant.  His 
tender  respect  for  human  life  had  received  its  first 
wound.  It  was  not  battle,  it  was  assassination. 
He  did  not  foresee  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
who  were  to  fall  before  the  great  strife,  would  be 
ended.  He  afterward  learned  to  bear  the  loss  of 
thousands  in  battle  more  bravely  than  he  bore  the 
loss  of  this  one  in  the  beginning  of  the  contest. 
But  the  loss  of  a  single  life,  otherwise  than  in  the 
ranged  fight,  was  always  hard  for  him,  as  so  often 
shown  in  his  action  upon  the  judgments  of  courts- 
martial. 

Early  in  his  first  term  there  was  a  vacancy  in  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court  to  be  filled  from  the 
Western  States.  Among  the  candidates  was  a  law- 
yer whom  I  knew,  whose  reputation  for  ability  was 
locally  well  established,  but  who  had  no  national 
reputation.  The  recommendations  had  been  for 
many  weeks  on  file,  but  no  action  taken.  One  day 
this  gentleman  came  to  me,  said  something  was 
operating  as  a  check  on  his  nomination,  and  he  was 
satisfied  I  could  remove   it  if  I  would  call   on  the 


BY  JOHN  N.    KASSON.  379 

President.  I  went  to  the  White  House  and  called 
up  the  case.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  :  "  I  never  heard  of 
this  man  before,  unless  it  is ,  who  had  an  elec- 
tion contest  in  Congress  over  the  Mormon  vote.  Is 
that  the  man?"  I  answered  him,  "No,  there  is 
no  common  blood  in  their  veins."  I  then  described 
the  character  of  the  candidate,  his  history  and  the 
qualities  which  in  my  judgment  fitted  him  especially 
for  the  high  place  to  which  he  aspired.  The  hitch 
was  in  the  President's  supposition  that  an  ordinary 
politician  had  been  recommended  for  a  high  judicial 
place,  and  he  could  not  approve  such  a  proposition. 
In  a  few  days  the  nomination  went  in  and  was  con- 
firmed, and  to-day,  by  the  general  judgment  of  the 
bar,  the  gentleman  so  appointed,  if  not  in  fact  the 
brightest  luminary  on  the  bench,  is  unsurpassed  in 
constitutional  learninof  and  in  force  of  lofjic.  His 
opinions  rank  with  the  best  since  the  time  of  Mar- 
shall. This  incident  is  worthy  of  mention,  because  it 
shows  that  in  appointments  of  high  importance  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  careful  and  conscientious,  although  in 
the  less  important  places  he  was  too  much  inclined 
to  oblige  friends,  and  to  trust  to  superficial  assur- 
ances. 

Many  smiles  have  been  caused  by  President  Lin- 
coln's quaint  remark,  in  reply  to  some  applicant  for 
ofifice,  in  which  he  said,  "  My  dear  sir,  I  have  not 
much  influence  with  this  administration."     An  inci- 


380  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

dent  of  my  intercourse  with  him  illustrates  the  truth 
of  his  remark,  and  was  followed  by  singular  conse- 
quences. It  was  in  the  days — which  heaven  grant 
may  come  to  a  speedy  end — when  Congressmen  were 
considered  the  necessary  and  inevitable  agents  for 
procuring  offices,  and  even  advancements,  in  the 
army.      Numerous  officers  in  the  field  had  written 

to  me  to  have  Colonel ,  of  the Iowa  reei- 

ment,  promoted  to  be  a  brigadier-general,  and  had 
intimated  in  one  of  their  petitions  that  they  would 
hold  me  responsible  for  a  failure,  and  that  soldiers 
were  voters.  The  colonel  deserved  the  promotion, 
but  it  was  difficult  to  obtain.  At  last  there  came  an 
Iowa  resignation,  and  I  went  again  to  the  President, 
who  signed  an  order  to  the  Secretary  of  War  to  let 

Colonel have  the  commission   in  place  of  the 

resigning  brigadier.  In  a  happy  frame  of  mind  I 
walked,  with  the  order  in  my  hand,  to  the  War  De- 
partment, to  see  the  Secretary,  Mr.  Stanton,  not 
doubting  my  success,  as  I  had  a  command  from  the 
constitutional  head  of  the  army.  My  confidence  was 
all  the  firmer  because  my  absolute  devotion  to  the 
Union  cause,  and  my  constant  fidelity  to  the  Repub- 
lican Party,  were  well  known  and  universally  recog- 
nized ;  and  my  relations  with  all  the  members  of  the 
Cabinet  were  perfectly  friendly. 

Mr.  Stanton  was  seated  on  the  sofa  talking  with  a 
friend,  and  his  immediate   clerk  was  standing:  at  a 


BY  JOHN  N.    A' AS  SON.  38 1 

neighboring  desk,  with  his  pen  in  hand.  As  I  ad- 
vanced, taking  off  my  hat,  Mr.  Stanton  turned  to 
me  to  hear  what  I  had  to  say.  I  told  him  my  errand, 
and  handed  him  the  President's  order.  He  elanced 
at  it,  and  said,  in  an  angry  tone,  "  I  sha'n't  do  it,  sir; 
I  sha'n't  do  it ! "  and  passed  the  paper  up  to  his 
clerk.  Utterly  amazed  at  his  words,  and  indignant 
at  his  tone,  I  inquired  why  he  refused  to  obey  the 
President's  order.  "  It  isn't  the  way  to  do  it,  sir, 
and  I  sha'n't  do  it."  I  was  going  on  to  speak  of  the 
merits  of  the  officer,  and  of  the  proceeding,  my 
wrath  rising,  when  he  cut  me  off  with,  "  I  don't  pro- 
pose to  argue  the  question  with  you,  sir  ;  I  sha'n't  do 
it."  Utterly  indignant,  I  turned  to  the  clerk  and 
asked  to  withdraw  the  paper.  "  Don't  you  let  him 
have  it.  sir,"  said  Stanton  ;  "don't  let  him  have  it." 
The  clerk,  whose  hands  were  trembling  like  an  East- 
ern slave  before  his  pasha,  withdrew  the  document 
which  he  was  in  the  act  of  giving  to  me.  I  felt  my 
indignation  getting  too  strong  for  me,  and  putting 
on  my  hat  and  turning  my  back  to  the  Secretary,  I 
slowly  went  to  the  door,  with  set  teeth,  saying  to 
myself,  "  As  you  will  not  hear  me  in  your  own  forum, 
you  shall  hear  from  me  in  mine." 

A  few  days  later,  after  recovering  my  coolness,  I 
reported  the  affair  to  the  President.  A  look  of  vex- 
ation came  over  his  face,  and  he  seemed  unwilling 
then  to  talk  of  it,  and  desired  me  to  see  him  another 


382  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

day,  I  did  so,  when  he  gave  me  a  positive  order 
for  the  promotion  of  the  colonel  to  be  a  brigadier, 
and  told  me  to  take  it  over  to  the  War  Department. 
I  replied  that  I  could  not  speak  again  with  Mr. 
Stanton  till  he  apologized  for  his  insulting  manner 
to  me  on  the  previous  occasion.  "  Oh,"  said  the 
President,  "  Stanton  has  gone  to  Fortress  Monroe, 
and  Dana  is  acting.  He  will  attend  to  it  for  you." 
This  he  said  with  a  manner  of  relief,  as  if  it  was  a 
piece  of  good  luck  to  find  a  man  there  who  would 
obey  his  orders.  The  nomination  was  sent  to  the 
Senate  and  confirmed. 

Very  soon  after  this  incident,  I  walked  into  the 
House  from  my  committee-room  one  morning,  and 
found  Thaddeus  Stevens  on  the  floor  defending 
Stanton  on  some  question.  My  opportunity  had 
come.  I  hurried  to  the  clerk's  desk  to  find  the  ques- 
tion under  debate.  It  was  a  resolution  for  an  in- 
vestigation of  the  inmates  of  the  old  Capitol  prison, 
when  it  was  charged  upon  the  administration  that 
many  innocent  men,  including  Unionists,  were  con- 
fined by  arbitrary  orders  from  the  War  Department, 
some  of  them  for  criticisms  on  the  Secretary's  action  ; 
and  not  only  without  written  charges  against  them, 
but  with  a  refusal  to  let  them  know  why  they  were 
arrested.  Such  action  I  knew  to  be  abhorrent  to 
Mr.  Lincoln's  sense  of  justice  and  equity,  and  that 
the  sole  responsibility  was  on  the  very  able,  but  very 


BY  JOHN  N.    KASSOy.  38 


O'-'O 


tyrannical,  Secretary,  in  whose  presence  I  had  seen 
men  and  women  tremble.  As  soon  as  Mr.  Stevens 
had  finished  I  sought  the  floor.  I  let  loose  my  de- 
nunciations of  his  willful  and  arbitrary  action,  for 
which  I  denied  the  responsibility  of  President  Lin- 
coln ;  and,  in  support  of  the  President,  related  an 
instance,  in  my  personal  experience,  of  his  dis- 
obedience to  his  chief.  In  three  minutes  every 
newspaper  and  every  pen  in  the  House  was  laid 
aside,  and  everybody  listening  to  what  was  equally 
an  assault  on  the  Secretary's  conduct  and  a  defense  of 
the  President.  The  vote  was  soon  taken,  and  as  I 
remember  the  figures,  only  six  votes  were  given  on 
the  Secretary's  side,  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
for  the  resolution.  I  think  it  was  on  the  following 
night  that  a  numerous  and,  it  was  said,  a  general  gaol 
delivery  was  made  ;  and  rumor  had  it  that  the  men 
were  carried  away  in  carriages,  under  promise  to 
make  no  further  complaint.  At  all  events,  it  was  the 
end  of  the  system  of  arbitrary  and  causeless  arrests. 
Messages  and  letters  from  far  and  near  came  to  me, 
with  thanks  for  my  arraignment  of  the  Secretary's 
action,  and  frivinor  instances  which  showed  that  there 
was,  in  Washington  especially,  a  reign  of  moral  terror 
of  which  I  had  no  previous  knowledge.  The  next 
time  I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  remember  well  his  change 
of  manner  to  me.  He  showed  his  gratification  in  his 
peculiar  and  familiar  manner,  by  his  twinkling  eyes, 


384  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and  by  his  slapping  me  on  the  thigh,  as  I  thought 
quite  unnecessarily.      His  War  Secretary  was  a  very 
able   man,   and   rendered   enormous    service    to    the 
Union  ;    he  was  very  resolute,    and    often    selfishly 
willful,  and  the   President  was  somewhat  in  awe  of 
his  arbitrary  character.     While  his  patience  was  un- 
equaled  among  public  men,  Stanton  had  none  at  all. 
I    cannot   refrain   from   adding   one   incident  con- 
nected, not  with  Lincoln  living,  but  with  Lincoln  dead 
by  a  murderer's  hand.     I  was  on  the  way  to  my  home 
in  the  heart  of  Iowa.     As  the  car  was  leaving  Daven- 
port, a  friend  jumped  upon  the  platform  while  the 
train  moved  away,  and  said  to  me  :  "  News  has  just 
come  by  telegraph  that  Lincoln  is  assassinated  !  "    "It 
can't  be  true ;  it  can't  be  true ; "  was  my  response  as 
the  quickening  speed  forced  my  friend  to  leap  to  the 
ground.      Hours  of  intense  anxiety  passed  as  station 
after  station  was  touched  and  not  a  word  more  could 
be  heard.     From  the  railway  I   mounted  the  stage 
coach,  for  only  Eastern  Iowa  then  had  the  roads  of 
iron.     So,  on  and  on  through  the  darkness,  still  with- 
out news,  until  in  the  dead  of  night  the  stage  stopped 
at  the  town  of  Newton  to  change  horses.    Here  was  a 
small  telegraph  office.      I  hurried  to  it.    A  little  crowd 
of   villagers    and  working-men    stood    half    dressed, 
many  in  shirt-sleeves,  around  the  open  window,  listen- 
ing, with  faces  in  which  suppressed  wrath  and  sorrow 
were  mingled,  to  the  click-click-click  of  the  telegraph 


BY  JOHN  N.    KASSON.  ^85 

register.  As  the  words  were  spelled  out  slowly,  one 
after  the  other,  the  operator  repeated  them,  rehears- 
ing with  painful  distinctness  the  assassin's  shot,  the 
leap  on  the  stage  floor,  the  falling  head  of  the  great 
patriot  and  martyr,  the  oozing  wound,  the  escape  of 
the  guilty.  It  was  the  heart  of  the  people  throbbing 
with  the  pulsations  of  the  passing  vitality  of  their 
hero,  in  the  deep  darkness  and  silence  of  the  night. 
Not  a  word  was  spoken  ;  there  were  only  the  gloomy 
eyes  and  the  firm-set  teeth.  It  is  one  of  the  tradi- 
tions of  Iowa  that  on  that  night  no  "  copperhead  " 
went  forth  from  his  house,  and  that  for  days  after- 
ward none  ventured  to  open  his  mouth  anywhere 
over  the  rolling  prairies  of  our  loyal  State.  The 
Union  heart  was  too  deeply  wounded  ;  it  was  sullen 
and  wrathful,  and  there  was  danger  in  the  air. 

JOHN  N.  KASSON. 


25 


XXII. 

James  B.  Fry. 

ALTHOUGH  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen 
Lincoln  until  the  day  of  his  first  inauguration 
as  President,  I  knew  him  through  my  father.  Pio- 
neers from  Kentucky  to  Illinois,  they  were  friends 
from  an  early  period.  Lincoln  was  a  private  in  the 
volunteer  forces  commanded  by  my  father  in  the 
Black  Hawk  War  of  183 1-2.  He  was  always  a  man 
of  note  among  his  associates,  in  the  Indian  campaign 
as  well  as  in  subsequent  political  campaigns,  espe- 
cially in  the  contest  with  Douglas  for  the  United 
States  Senate.  My  father  was  an  ardent  personal 
and  political  friend  of  Douglas,  and  in  his  circle  it 
was  looked  upon  as  presumptuous  and  ridiculous  for 
Abe  Lincoln  to  compete  with  the  "  Little  Giant "  for 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 

The  contest  proved  that  the  so-called  rail-splitter 
was  the  real  giant,  and  led  to  his  selection  for  the 
head  of  the  new  party  at  Chicago  in  the  summer  of 
1860,  and  to  his  election  to  the  Presidency  in  the 
following  autumn.  Lincoln  and  his  Illinois  compet- 
itor, Stephen  A.  Douglas,  formed  a  striking  contrast. 


388  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Douglas  was  low  in  stature,  rotund  in  figure,  with  a 
short  neck,  a  big  bullet-head,  and  a  chubby  face. 
His  lips  were  forced  into  the  fixed  smile  character- 
istic of  the  popular  and  well-satisfied  public  man 
of  a  period  when  political  success  depended  largely 
upon  what  a  man  said,  how  he  said  it,  and  how  he 
appeared  in  personal  intercourse  with  the  people  ; 
and  not,  as  now,  much  upon  what  newspapers  say  of 
him  and  for  him. 

Lincoln  was  tall  and  thin  ;  his  long  bones  were 
united  by  large  joints,  and  he  had  a  long  neck  and 
an  angular  face  and  head.  Many  likenesses  repre- 
sent his  face  well  enough,  but  none  that  I  have  ever 
seen  do  justice  to  the  awkwardness  and  ungainliness 
of  his  figure.  His  feet,  hanging  loosely  to  his  ankles, 
were  prominent  objects ;  but  his  hands  were  more 
conspicuous  even  than  his  feet — due  perhaps  to  the 
fact  that  ceremony  at  times  compelled  him  to  clothe 
them  in  white  kid  gloves,  which  always  fitted  loosely. 
Both  in  the  height  of  conversation  and  in  the  depth 
of  reflection  his  hand  now  and  then  ran  over  or 
supported  his  head,  giving  his  hair  habitually  a  dis- 
ordered aspect.  I  never  saw  him  when  he  appeared 
to  me  otherwise  than  a  great  man,  and  a  very  ugly 
one.  His  expression  in  repose  was  sad  and  dull  ; 
but  his  ever-recurring  humor,  at  short  intervals, 
flashed  forth  with  the  brilliancy  of  an  electric  light. 
I  observed  but  two  well-defined   expressions  in  his 


BY  JAMES  B.    FRY.  389 

countenance  ;  one,  that  of  a  pure,  thoughtful,  hon- 
est man,  absorbed  by  a  sense  of  duty  and  responsi- 
bihty ;  the  other,  that  of  a  humorist  so  full  of  fun 
that  he  could  not  keep  it  all  in.  His  power  of 
analysis  was  wonderful.  He  strengthened  every  case 
he  stated,  and  no  anecdote  or  joke  ever  lost  force  or 
effect  from  his  telling.  He  invariably  carried  the 
listener  with  him  to  the  very  climax,  and  when  that 
was  reached  in  relating  a  humorous  story,  he  laughed 
all  over.  His  large  mouth  assumed  an  unexpected 
and  comical  shape,  the  skin  on  his  nose  gathered 
into  wrinkles,  and  his  small  eyes,  though  partly 
closed,  emitted  infectious  rays  of  fun.  It  was  not 
only  the  aptness  of  his  stories,  but  his  way  of  telling 
them,  and  his  own  unfeigned  enjoyment,  that  gave 
them  zest,  even  among  the  gravest  men  and  upon 
the  most  serious  occasions. 

Nevertheless,  Lincoln — a  good  listener — was  not 
a  good  conversationalist.  When  he  talked,  he  told 
a  story  or  argued  a  case.  But  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  during  the  entire  four  years  of  his  Presi- 
dency, from  the  spring  of  1861  until  his  death  in 
April,  1865,  civil  war  prevailed.  It  bore  heaviest 
upon  him,  and  his  mind  was  bent  daily,  hourly  even, 
upon  the  weighty  matters  of  his  high  office  ;  so  that, 
as  he  might  have  expressed  it,  he  was  either  lifting 
with  all  his  might  at  the  butt-end  of  the  log,  or 
sitting  upon  it  whittling,  for  rest  and  recreation. 


390 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Lincoln  was  as  nearly  master  of  himself  as  it  is 
possible  for  a  man  clothed  with  great  authority  and 
engaged  in  the  affairs  of  public  life  to  become.  He 
had  no  bad  habits,  and  if  he  was  not  wholly  free 
from  the  passions  of  human  nature,  it  is  quite  cer- 
tain that  passion  but  rarely  if  ever  governed  his  ac- 
tion. If  he  deviated  from  the  straight  course  of 
justice,  it  was  usually  from  indulgence  for  the  minor 
faults  or  weaknesses  of  his  fellow-men.  I  observed 
but  one  craving  that  he  could  not  overcome  :  that 
was  for  a  second  term  of  the  Presidency.  He  was 
fully  conscious  of  the  grip  this  desire  had  upon  him, 
and  once  said  in  the  way  of  apology  for  it: 

"  No  man  knows  what  that  gnawing  is  till  he  has 
had  it." 

During  the  spring  of  1861  I  was  in  charge  of  the 
appointment  branch  of  the  Adjutant-General's  De- 
partment. Upon  one  occasion,  when  I  was  at  the 
White  House  in  the  course  of  duty,  the  President, 
after  disposing  of  the  matter  in  hand,  said  : 

"You  are  in  charge  of  the  appointment  office. 
I  have  here  a  bushel-basketful  of  applications  for 
offices  in  the  army.  I  have  tried  to  examine  them 
all,  but  they  have  increased  so  rapidly  that  I  have 
got  behind  and  may  have  neglected  some.  I  will 
send  them  all  to  your  office.  Overhaul  them,  lay 
those  that  require  further  action  before  the  Secre- 
tary of  War,  and  file  the  others." 


BY  JAMES  B.    FRY.  39  I 

The  bushel-basketful  came,  and  the  papers  were 
overhauled.  They  were  dotted  with  notes,  com- 
ments, and  queries  by  the  President.  One  slip 
of  paper — which  I  handed  back  to  the  President 
with  the  remark  that  I  supposed  he  would  not  care 
to  have  it  placed  upon  the  official  files — bore  a 
memorandum  in  his  own  handwriting  as  follows  : 

"On  this  day  Mrs. called  upon  me.     She  is 

the  wife  of  Major  of  the  regular  army.     She 

wants  her  husband  made  a  brigadier-general.  She 
is  a  saucy  little  woman,  and  I  think  she  will  torment 
me  till  I  have  to  do  it. — A.  L." 

It  was  not  long  before  that  little  woman's  hus- 
band was  appointed  a  brigadier-general. 

At  a  later  date  I  heard  a  conversation  between 
Lincoln  and  Stanton  in  relation  to  the  selection  of 
brigadier-generals.  The  many  applications  and  rec- 
ommendations were  examined  and  discussed.  Lin- 
coln finally  said  : 

"  Well,  Mr.  Secretary,  I  concur  in  pretty  much  all 
you  say.  The  only  point  I  make  is,  that  there  has 
got  to  be  something  done  that  will  be  unquestion- 
ably in  the  interest  of  the  Dutch,  and  to  that  end 
I  want  Schemmelfinnig  appointed." 

The  Secretary  replied : 

"  Mr.  President,  perhaps  this  Schemmel-what's-his- 
name  is  not  as  highly  recommended  as  some  other 
German  officer." 


392  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

"  No  matter  about  that,"  said  Lincoln,  "  his  name 
will  make  up  for  any  difference  there  may  be,  and 
I'll  take  the  risk  of  his  coming  out  all  right." 

Then,  with  a  laugh,  he  repeated,  dwelling  upon 
each  syllable  of  the  name,  and  accenting  the  last  one, 
"  Schem-mel-fin-;2z'^  must  be  appointed." 

There  is  no  purpose  here  to  question  General 
Schemmelfinnig's  merits.  The  only  object  is  to 
show  that  Lincoln  had  reasons,  in  addition  to  Schem- 
melfinnig's recommendations,  for  appointing  him 
brigadier-general. 

After  I  became  Provost-Marshal-General  of  the 
United  States — March,  1863 — the  duty  of  enrolling 
and  drafting  the  national  forces  required  me  to  see 
a  great  deal  of  the  President. 

Once  when  I  went  into  his  office  at  the  White 
House,  I  found  a  private  soldier  making  a  complaint 
to  him.  It  was  a  summer  afternoon.  Lincoln 
looked  tired  and  careworn  ;  but  he  was  listening 
as  patiently  as  he  could  to  the  grievances  of  the 
obscure  member  of  the  military  force  known  as 
"  Scott's  nine  hundred,"  then  stationed  in  Wash- 
ington. When  I  approached  Lincoln's  desk  I  heard 
him  say  : 

"  W^ell,  my  man,  that  may  all  be  so,  but  you  must 
go  to  your  officers  about  it." 

The  man,  however,  presuming  upon  Lincoln's 
good-nature,  and  determined   to   make  the   most   of 


BY  JAMES  B.    FRY.  393 

his  opportunity,  persisted  in  re-telling  his  troubles 
and  pleading  for  the  President's  interference.  After 
listening  to  the  same  story  two  or  three  times  as 
he  gazed  wearily  through  the  south  window  of  his 
office  upon  the  broad  Potomac  in  the  distance,  Lin- 
coln turned  upon  the  man,  and  said  in  a  peremptory 
tone  that  ended  the  interview : 

"  Now,  my  man,  go  away,  go  away !  I  cannot 
meddle  in  your  case.  I  could  as  easily  bailout  the 
Potomac  River  with  a  teaspoon  as  attend  to  all  the 
details  of  the  army." 

The  following  is  a  good  example  of  Lincoln's 
clearness  and  force  in  stating  a  case.  It  relates  to 
the  vexed  question  that  prevailed  in  1864-65  con- 
cerning the  quota  of  troops  to  be  furnished  by  the 
States.  The  Legislature  of  Rhode  Island  sent  a 
committee  to  Washington  to  confer  with  the  Presi- 
dent upon  the  subject  of  the  number  of  men  required 
from  that  State.     The  committee  said  in  its  report: 

"The  President  at  this  point  interrupted  the  com- 
mittee to  say  that  complaints  from  several  States 
had  already  been  made  to  the  same  effect,  and  in 
one  instance  the  subject  had  been  earnestly  pressed 
to  his  attention,  and  that  he  had  personally  taken 
the  pains  to  examine  for  himself  the  formula  which 
the  Provost-Marshal-General  had  adopted  for  the 
calculation  and  distribution  of  the  quotas  for  the 
different  States,  and   had  arrived  at  the  conclusion 


394  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  it  was  impossible  for  any  candid  mind  to  doubt 
or  question  its  entire  fairness.  In  order  that  your 
committee  might  be  fully  possessed  of  his  opinion 
upon  this  subject,  the  President  read  the  following 
paper,  the  original  of  which  had  been  forwarded  to 
his  Excellency  the  Governor  of  the  State  of  Ver- 
mont : 

" '  Executive  Mansion, 
Washington,  February  8,  1865. 

"  '  Complaint  is  made  to  me  by  Vermont  that  the 
assignment  of  her  quota  for  the  draft  on  the  im- 
pending call  is  intrinsically  unjust,  and  also  in  bad 
faith  of  the  government's  promise  to  fairly  allow 
credits  for  men  previously  furnished. 

'*'To  illustrate,  a  supposed  case  is  stated  as  fol- 
lows: Vermont  and  New  Hampshire  must  between 
them  furnish  six  thousand  (6,000)  men  on  the  pend- 
ing call ;  and  being  equals,  one  must  furnish  as 
many  as  the  other  in  the  long-run.  But  the  gov- 
ernment finds  that  on  former  calls  Vermont  fur- 
nished a  surplus  of  five  hundred  (500),  and  New 
Hampshire  a  surplus  of  fifteen  hundred  (1,500). 
These  two  surpluses  make  2,000,  and  added  to  the 
six  thousand  (6,000)  make  eight  thousand  (8,000) 
to  be  furnished  by  the  two  States  ;  or  four  thousand 
each,  less  fair  credits.  Then  subtracting  Ver- 
mont's surplus  of  five  hundred  (500)  from  her  four 
thousand  (4,000),  leaves   three    thousand    five  hun- 


BV  JAMES  B.   FRY.  395 

dred  (3,500)  as  her  quota  on  the  pending  call  ;  and 
likewise  subtracting  New  Hampshire's  surplus  of 
fifteen  hundred  (1,500)  from  her  four  thousand 
(4,000),  leaves  two  thousand  five  hundred  (2,500)  as 
her  quota  on  the  pending  call.  These  three  thou- 
sand five  hundred  (3,500)  and  two  thousand  five 
hundred  (2,500)  make  precisely  the  six  thousand 
(6,000)  which  the  supposed  case  requires  from  the 
two  States  ;  and  it  is  just  equal  for  Vermont  to  fur- 
nish one  thousand  (1,000)  more  now  than  New 
Hampshire,  because  New  Hampshire  has  heretofore 
furnished  one  thousand  (1,000)  more  than  Vermont, 
which  equalizes  the  burdens  of  the  two  in  the  long- 
run  ;  and  this  proceeding,  so  far  from  being  bad 
faith  to  Vermont,  is  indispensable  to  keeping  good 
faith  with  New  Hampshire.  By  no  other  process 
can  the  six  thousand  (6,000)  men  be  obtained  from 
the  two  States,  and  at  the  same  time  deal  justly  and 
keep  faith  with  both ;  and  we  do  but  confuse  our- 
selves in  questioning  the  operation  by  which  the 
right  result  is  reached. 

"  '  The  supposed  case  is  perfect  as  an  illustration. 

"  '  The  pending  call  is  not  for  three  hundred  thou- 
sand (300,000)  men,  subject  to  fair  credits,  but  is  for 
three  hundred  thousand  (300,000)  remaining  after  all 
fair  credits  have  been  deducted  ;  and  it  is  impossible 
to  concede  what  Vermont  asks  without  coming  out 
short  of  the  three  hundred  thousand  (300,000)  men, 


396  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

or  making  other  localities  pay  for  the  partiality 
shown  her.  This  upon  the  case  stated.  If  there  be 
different  reasons  for  making  an  allowance  to  Ver- 
mont, let  them  be  presented  and  considered. 

(Signed)  "  'A.  LINCOLN.'  " 

This  statement  of  the  case  by  Lincoln  was  a  con- 
clusive answer  to  both  Vermont  and  Rhode  Island. 

A  story  has  long  been  current  that  Lincoln  sent 
an  applicant  for  office  with  a  note  to  the  Secretary 
of  War,  directing  that  a  letter  of  appointment  be 
prepared  for  the  man  to  the  office  he  sought ;  that 
the  applicant  returned  to  the  President  and  an- 
nounced that  Stanton  refused  to  obey  the  order  ; 
that  the  President  looked  disappointed,  but  merely 
expressed  his  regret  at  the  result,  and  remarked  that 
he  had  not  much  influence  with  the  administration. 
The  anecdote  has  generally  been  interpreted  as 
meaninof  that  Lincoln  could  not  control  Stanton. 
The  inference  is  erroneous.  Lincoln,  so  far  as  I 
could  discover,  was  in  every  respect  the  actual  head 
of  the  administration,  and  whenever  he  chose  to  do 
so  he  controlled  Stanton  as  well  as  all  the  other 
Cabinet  ministers. 

I  will  cite  one  instance  in  relation  to  Stanton. 

After  compulsory  military  service  was  resorted  to. 
States  and  districts  tried  to  fill  their  quotas,  and  save 
their  own  citizens  from  being  drafted  into  the  army, 
by  voting  bounties  to  buy  men  wherever  they  could 


BY  JAMES  B.    FRY.  397 

be  found.  The  agent  appointed  by  a  county  in  one 
of  the  Middle  States,  and  suppHed  with  bounty 
money,  learned  that  some  Confederate  prisoners  of 
war  at  Chicago  were  about  to  be  released  and  en- 
listed in  our  army  for  service  against  the  Indians  in 
the  North-west.  The  thrifty  thought  occurred  to  the 
agent  to  pay  these  prisoners  a  bounty  for  what  they 
were  going  to  do  without  any  pay  at  all,  and  in  re- 
turn for  this  payment  have  them  credited  as  soldiers 
furnished  by  his  county.  Being  an  acquaintance  of 
Lincoln,  the  agent  obtained  from  him  an  order  to 
have  the  men  credited  as  desired.  But  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  refused  to  have  the  credits  allowed.  In- 
dignant and  disappointed,  the  agent  returned  to  the 
President,  who  reiterated  the  order,  but  without 
effect.  Then  Lincoln  went  in  person  to  Stanton's 
office,  and  I  was  called  there  by  the  latter  to  state 
the  facts  in  the  case. 

I  reported  to  the  two  high  officials,  as  I  had  pre- 
viously done  to  the  Secretary  alone,  that  these  men 
already  belonged  to  the  United  States,  being  pris- 
oners of  war  ;  that  they  could  not  be  used  against 
the  Confederates  ;  that  they  had  no  relation  what- 
ever to  the  county  to  which  it  was  proposed  they 
should  be  credited ;  that  all  that  was  necessary  toward 
enlisting  them  in  our  army  for  Indian  service  was 
the  government's  release  of  them  as  prisoners  of 
war ;  that  to  give  them  bounty  and  credit  them  to  a 


398  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

county  which  owed  some  of  its  own  men  for  service 
against  the  Confederates  would  waste  money  and 
deprive  the  army  operating  against  a  powerful  en- 
emy of  that  number  of  men,  etc. 

Stanton  said  : 

"  Now,  Mr.  President,  those  are  the  facts,  and  you 
must  see  that  your  order  cannot  be  executed." 

Lincoln  sat  upon  a  sofa  with  his  legs  crossed,  and 
did  not  say  a  word  until  the  Secretary's  last  remark. 
Then  he  said  in  a  somewhat  positive  tone  :  "  Mr. 
Secretary,  I  reckon  you'll  have  to  execute  the  or- 
der." 

Stanton  replied  with  asperity  : 

"  Mr.  President,  I  cannot  do  it.  The  order  is  an 
improper  one,  and  I  cannot  execute  it." 

Lincoln  fixed  his  eye  upon  Stanton,  and  in  a  firm 
voice,  and  with  an  accent  that  clearly  showed  his  de- 
termination, he  said  : 

"  Mr.  Secretary,  it  will  have  to  be  done.'' 

Stanton  then  realized  that  he  was  overmatched. 
He  had  made  a  square  issue  with  the  President  and 
been  defeated,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  he  was 
in  the  right.  Upon  an  intimation  from  him  I  with- 
drew and  did  not  witness  his  surrender.  A  few 
minutes  after  I  reached  my  office  I  received  in- 
structions from  the  Secretary  to  carry  out  the  Presi- 
dent's order.  Stanton  never  mentioned  the  subject 
to  me  afterward,  nor  did  I  ever  ascertain  the  special, 


BY  JAMES  B.    FRY.  399 

and  no  doubt  sufficient,  reasons  which  the   President 
had  for  his  action  in  the  case. 

The  vexatious  duties  of  the  general  government 
concernino-  the  draft  made  demands  upon  Lincoln's 
ability  not  only  in  deciding  important  questions, 
but  in  avoiding  decisions  when  it  was  not  best  to 
risk  a  rupture  with  State  officials  by  rendering 
them.  Upon  one  occasion  the  Governor  of  a  State 
came  to  my  office  bristling  with  complaints  in  rela- 
tion to  the  number  of  troops  required  from  his 
State,  the  details  for  drafting  the  men,  and  the  plan 
of  compulsory  service  in  general.  I  found  it  im- 
possible to  satisfy  his  demands,  and  accompanied 
him  to  the  Secretary  of  War's  office,  whence,  after 
a  stormy  interview  with  Stanton,  he  went  alone  to 
press  his  ultimatum  upon  the  highest  authority. 
After  I  had  waited  anxiously  for  some  hours,  ex- 
pecting important  orders  or  decisions  from  the  Pres- 
ident, or  at  least  a  summons  to  the  White  House 
for  explanation,  the  Governor  returned,  and  said 
with  a  pleasant  smile  that  he  was  going  home  by 
the  next  train,  and  merely  dropped  in  en  route  to 
say  good-by.  Neither  the  business  he  came  upon 
nor  his  interview  with  the  President  was  alluded  to. 
As  soon  as  I  could  see  Lincoln,  I  said  : 
"  Mr.  President,  I  am  very  anxious  to  learn  how 

you  disposed  of  Governor .      He  went  to  your 

office    from    the    War    Department    in    a    towering 


400  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

rage.  I  suppose  you  found  it  necessary  to  make 
large  concessions  to  him,  as  he  returned  from  you 
entirely  satisfied." 

"  Oh,  no,"  he  replied,  "  I  did  not  concede  any- 
thing-. Yoic  know  how  that  Illinois  farmer  man- 
aged  the  big  log  that  lay  in  the  middle  of  his 
field !  To  the  inquiries  of  his  neighbors  one  Sun- 
day, he  announced  that  he  had  got  rid  of  the  big 
log.  'Got  rid  of  it!'  said  they,  '  how  did  you  do 
it  ?  It  was  too  big  to  haul  out,  too  knotty  to  split, 
and  too  wet  and  soggy  to  burn  ;  what  did  you  do  ? ' 
'  Well,  now,  boys,'  replied  the  farmer,  '  if  you  won't 
divulge  the  secret,  I'll  tell  you  how  I  got  rid  of 
it—/  ploughed  around  it.'  Now,"  said  Lincoln, 
"don't  tell  anybody,  but  that's  the  way  I  got  rid  of 

Governor .     I  ploughed  m^otind  him,  but  it  took 

me  three  mortal  hours  to  do  it,  and  I  was  afraid 
every  minute  he'd  see  what  I  was  at." 

Lincoln  was  a  good  judge  of  men,  and  quickly 
learned  the  peculiar  traits  of  character  in  those  he 
had  to  deal  with. 

I  recall  an  anecdote  by  which  he  pointed  out  a 
marked  trait  in  one  of  our  Northern  Governors. 
This  Governor  was  earnest,  able  and  untiring  in 
keeping  up  the  war  spirit  in  his  State,  and  in  rais- 
ing and  equipping  troops  ;  but  he  always  wanted 
his  own  way,  and  illy  brooked  the  restraints  im- 
posed by  the  necessity  of  conforming  to  a  general 


BY  JAMES  B.   FRY.  4OI 

system.  Though  devoted  to  the  cause,  he  was  at 
times  overbearing  and  exacting  in  his  intercourse 
with  the  general  government.  Upon  one  occasion 
he  complained  and  protested  more  bitterly  than 
usual,  and  warned  those  in  authority  that  the  exe- 
cution of  their  orders  in  his  State  would  be  beset 
by  difficulties  and  dangers.  The  tone  of  his  dis- 
patches gave  rise  to  an  apprehension  that  he  might 
not  co-operate  fully  in  the  enterprise  in  hand.  The 
Secretary  of  War,  therefore,  laid  the  dispatches  be- 
fore the  President  for  advice  or  instructions.  They 
did  not  disturb  Lincoln  in  the  least.  In  fact,  they 
rather  amused  him.  After  reading  all  the  papers, 
he  said  in  a  cheerful  and  reassuringr  tone  : 

"  Never  mind,  never  mind  ;  those  dispatches  don't 
mean  anything.  Just  go  right  ahead.  The  Gov- 
ernor is  like  a  boy  I  saw  once  at  a  launching. 
When  everything  was  ready  they  picked  out  a  boy 
and  sent  him  under  the  ship  to  knock  away  the 
trigger  and  let  her  go.  At  the  critical  moment 
everything  depended  on  the  boy.  He  had  to  do 
the  job  well  by  a  direct  vigorous  blow,  and  then 
lie  flat  and  keep  still  while  the  ship  slid  over  him. 
The  boy  did  everything  right,  but  he  yelled  as  if 
he  was  being  murdered  from  the  time  he  got  under 
the  keel  until  he  got  out.  I  thought  the  hide  was 
all  scraped  off  his  back ;  but  he  wasn't  hurt  at  all. 

The  master  of  the  yard  told  me  that  this  boy  was 
26 


402 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


always  chosen  for  that  job,  that  he  did  his  work 
well,  that  he  never  had  been  hurt,  but  that  he 
always  squealed  in  that  way.     That's  just  the  way 

with  Governor .      Make  up  your  minds  that  he 

is  not  hurt,  and  that  he  is  doing  the  work  right,  and 
pay  no  attention  to  his  squealing.  He  only  wants 
to  make  you  understand  how  hard  his  task  is,  and 
that  he  is  on  hand  performing  it." 

Time  proved  that  the  President's  estimate  of  the 
Governor  was  correct, 

Lincoln  watched  the  operations  of  the  armies  in 
the  field  with  the  deepest  interest,  the  keenest  in- 
sight, and  the  widest  comprehension.  The  con- 
gratulatory order  which  General  Meade  published 
to  his  troops  after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  was 
telegraphed  to  the  War  Department.  During  those 
days  and  nights  of  anxiety,  Lincoln  clung  to  the 
War  Ofifice,  and  devoured  every  scrap  of  news  as  it 
came  over  the  telegraph  wires.  He  hoped  for  and 
expected  substantial  fruits  from  our  dearly  bought 
victory  at  Gettysburg.  I  saw  him  read  General 
Meade's  congratulatory  order.  When  he  came  to 
the  sentence  about  "  drivincr  the  invaders  from  our 
soil,"  an  expression  of  disappointment  settled  upon 
his  face,  his  hands  dropped  upon  his  knees,  and  in 
tones  of  anguish  he  exclaimed,  ''Drive  the  invaders 
from  02ir  soil f     My  God !     Is  that  all?'' 

I  was   designated   by  the   Secretary  of  War  as  a 


B  Y  JAMES  B.    FR  V.  40  ^ 

sort  of  special  escort  to  accompany  the  President 
from  Washington  to  Gettysburg  upon  the  occasion 
of  the  first  anniversary  of  the  battle  at  that  place. 
At  the  appointed  time  I  went  to  the  White  House, 
where  I  found  the  President's  carriage  at  the  door 
to  take  him  to  the  station  ;  but  he  was  not  ready. 
When  he  appeared  it  was  rather  late,  and  I  re- 
marked that  he  had  no  time  to  lose  in  oroing:  to  the 
train.  "  Well,"  said  he,  "  I  feel  about  that  as  the 
convict  in  one  of  our  Illinois  towns  felt  when  he 
was  going  to  the  gallows.  As  he  passed  along  the 
road  in  custody  of  the  sheriff,  the  people,  eager  to 
see  the  execution,  kept  crowding  and  pushing  past 
him.  At  last  he  called  out  :  *  Boys,  you  needn't  be 
in  such  a  hurry  to  get  ahead,  ^/lere  wont  be  any  fnn 
till  I  get  there'  " 

It  has  been  said,  I  believe,  that  Lincoln  wrote  in 
the  car  en  route  to  Gettysburg  the  celebrated  speech 
which  he  delivered  upon  that  historic  battle-ground. 
I  am  quite  sure  that  is  an  error.  I  have  no  recol- 
lection of  seeing  him  writing  or  even  reading  his 
speech  during  the  journey.  In  fact,  there  was  hardly 
any  opportunity  for  him  to  read  or  write. 

In  April,  1865,  I  was  sent  with  the  government 
excursion  from  Washington  to  Charleston  to  take 
part  in  the  ceremony  of  raising  over  Fort  Sumter 
the  flag  that  had  been  lowered  there  in  April,  1861. 
When   I    reported   to   Stanton   upon   my  return,  he 


4.04  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

gave   me   a  detailed  account  of    the  awful  tragedy 
which  had  been  enacted  in  the  national  capital  dur- 
ing our  absence.      He  said  that  he  had  never  felt  so 
sensible  of  his  deep  affection  for  Lincoln  as  he  did 
during  their  final  interview.     At  last  they  could  see 
the  end  of  bloody  fratricidal  war.      Peace  was  dawn- 
ing upon  their  beloved  country.      "Well  done,  good 
and   faithful    servants  ! "  was   upon    the   lips  of  the 
nation.     As    they    exchanged    congratulations,    Lin- 
coln, from  his  greater  height,  dropped  his  long  arm 
upon  Stanton's  shoulders,  and  a  hearty  embrace  ter- 
minated their  rejoicings  over  the  close  of  the  mighty 
struggle.     Stanton  went  home  happy.     That  night 
Lincoln  was  assassinated,  and  a  black   pall  covered 

the  land. 

JAMES  B.  FE.Y. 


IM^^^^^^ 


mill   villi  III  I  lUiMiiBiiiiiiiiiiji/iHii'iiiSiiildliiil'JfJ 


fe/ 


M 


^^# 


iiiafiiiSiiiiiiisiiBiiiiJsiiiiffi 


XXIII. 

Hugh  McCulloch. 

THE  history  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  life  is  an  exceed- 
ingly interesting  one — more  interesting  in  many 
respects  than  that  of  any  other  man  which  our  coun- 
try has  produced. 

Of  humble  parentage,  without  opportunities  for 
mental  culture  in  early  life,  he  became  an  able  lawyer, 
a  forcible  writer,  a  captivating  and  instructive  speaker, 
an  executive  officer  of  singular  foresight  and  wisdom 
in  the  most  trying  period  of  our  nation's  history. 
Before  his  joint  debate  with  Mr.  Douglas  in  1858,  he 
was  little  known  outside  of  his  own  State.  The 
ability  which  he  displayed  in  that  debate  gave  him  a 
national  reputation.  He  and  Mr.  Douglas  were  the 
rival  candidates  for  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate, of  which  Mr.  Douglas  was  a  prominent  member, 
but  whose  term  of  office  was  about  to  expire.  They 
had  frequently  met  as  opposing  counsel  in  important 
suits.  They  were  therefore  well  known  to  each 
other,  and  by  their  public  speeches  they  were  well 
known  to  the  people  of  Illinois.  They  had,  in  one  or 
two  instances,  addressed  the  same  audiences  upon  po- 


406  REMINISCENCES  OF  A  BRA  II A  AI  LINCOLN 

litical  subjects,  but  they  had  never  met  by  agreement, 
at  that  time  a  common  occurrence  in  the  West,  in 
pubHc  debate.  The  question  which  then  was  excit- 
ing the  greatest  interest  throughout  the  Union  was 
slavery — not  (with  the  exception  of  a  comparatively 
few  ultra-antislavery  men  in  the  Northern  States) 
whether  it  should  be  abolished  in  the  States  where  it 
existed,  but  whether  it  should  be  extended  into  the 
Territories. 

Mr.  Douglas,  as  a  United  States  Senator,  had  been 
largely  instrumental  in  effecting  a  repeal  of  the  com- 
promise by  which  Missouri  had  been  admitted  into 
the  Union  and  the  extension  of  slavery  into  other 
Territories  prohibited.  He  was  the  leading  advocate, 
in  fact  the  father,  of  the  doctrine  of  popular  sover- 
eignty— the  right  of  the  people  of  the  Territories, 
in  preparing  constitutions  for  admission  into  the 
Union  as  sovereign  States,  to  determine  for  them- 
selves whether  they  should  be  slave  States  or  free. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  although  a  hater  of  slavery,  was  not 
an  Abolitionist.  He  had  a  profound  reverence  for 
the  Constitution  upon  which  the  Union  was  founded, 
which  recognized  slavery  as  a  local  institution,  but 
he  was  firm  and  unyielding  in  his  opposition  to  its 
extension. 

Thus  they  stood  before  the  people  of  Illinois  the 
acknowledged  representatives  of  their  respective 
parties — one,  the  advocate  of  the  nationalization  of 


BY  HUGH  MiCULLOCH.  407 

slavery  ;  the  other,  the  advocate  of  freedom  for  all, 
and  everywhere  except  in  those  States  in  which  slav- 
ery had  a  constitutional  existence.  Neither  was  an 
extremist  ;  neither  was  the  exponent  of  ultra  doc- 
trines on  either  side.  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  zo  far 
enough,  in  merely  opposing  the  extension  of  slavery, 
to  satisfy  the  Abolitionists  of  the  North,  who  demand- 
ed the  extirpation  of  slavery,  root  and  branch,  with- 
out regard  to  the  sanctions  of  the  Constitution.  Mr. 
Douglas,  who  was  neither  an  advocate  nor  an  oppo- 
nent of  slavery,  did  not  go  far  enough  to  satisfy  the 
pro-slavery  leaders  of  the  South,  who  contended  for 
the  right  of  slave-holders  to  take  their  slaves  into  the 
Territories  and  hold  them  there,  in  perpetual  servi- 
tude, regardless  of  what  he  called  popular,  and  they 
denounced  as  squatter,  sovereignty.  While,  there- 
fore, neither  of  them  came  up  to  the  high  standard 
of  either  Abolitionists  on  the  one  hand  or  pro-slavery 
men  on  the  other,  the  difference  between  them  was 
decided  and  irreconcilable  ;  and  in  order  that  the  dif- 
ference might  be  fairly  and  thoroughly  discussed 
before  the  same  audiences,  Mr.  Lincoln  invited  Mr. 
Douglas  to  meet  him  in  a  joint  debate  in  some  of 
the  most  populous  counties  of  the  State.  The  invi- 
tation was  promptly  accepted.  The  debate  began  on 
the  2 1  St  of  August  and  closed  on  the  15th  of  Octo- 
ber. They  spoke  in  the  open  air,  and  their  speeches 
were   listened  to   with  the   deepest  interest   by  the 


408  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

many  thousands  who  thronged  to  hear  them.  Thev 
were  fully  and  carefully  reported,  and  were  published 
in  the  leading  journals  North  and  South.  No  speeches 
ever  made  in  the  United  States  commanded  so  great 
attention  or  made  so  deep  an  impression  upon  the 
public  mind.  It  was,  indeed,  the  opening  of  the  "  irre- 
pressible conflict "  which  Mr.  Seward  had  predicted. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  in  a  speech  which  he  made  a  short 
time  before,  had  avowed  the  sentiment  that  the 
United  States  could  not  permanently  continue  to  be 
"  part  slave  and  part  free ; "  that  freedom  or  slavery 
sooner  or  later  must  become  dominant  in  all  the 
States  ;  that  slavery  was  local ;  that  there  was  no 
warrant  under  the  Constitution  for  its  extension ;  and 
that  its  extension  could  rightfully  be  prevented  by 
Congress.  On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Douglas  was  com- 
mitted to  the  doctrine  that  slavery  was  nationalized 
by  the  Constitution  ;  that  Congress  had  no  authority 
to  prevent  its  introduction  to  the  Territories ;  that 
the  people  of  each  Territory  and  each  State  could 
alone  decide  whether  they  should  be  slave  States  or 
free.  In  a  word,  he  was  committed  to  the  doctrine 
of  popular  sovereignty  in  its  widest  sense. 

This  really  was  the  question  to  be  discussed,  but 
the  discussion  was  not  confined  to  it.  In  the  course 
of  the  debate,  slavery,  its  inhumanity,  its  influence 
upon  the  white  population,  its  inconsistency  with 
republicanism,  were  freely  considered. 


BV  HUGH  McCULLOCII.  409 

At  the  beginning  of  the  debate  the  advantages 
seemed  to  be  on  the  side  of  Mr.  Douglas.  The  anti- 
slavery  sentiment  had  not  taken  root  in  Illinois. 
Washed  by  the  Ohio  on  the  south,  and  the  WabaSh 
on  the  west,  by  which  the  largest  part  of  her  surplus 
productions  were  sent  to  the  Southern  markets,  her 
pecuniary  interests  bound  her  to  the  South.  From 
her  earliest  settlement  the  slave-owners  had  been 
her  best,  almost  her  only  reliable  customers.  Nor 
was  this  all.  Illinois  had  been  largely  settled  by 
immigrants  from  the  slave  States,  so  that  she  was 
connected  with  the  South  by  social  as  well  as  pecun- 
iary ties.  For  more  than  half  a  century  the  Union 
had  existed  and  rapidly  grown  in  wealth  and  popu- 
lation, part  slave  and  part  free.  Why  might  it  not 
remain  so,  and  still  continue  to  thrive  and  prosper  ? 
Besides,  there  was  something  captivating  in  the 
doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty — the  right  of  the 
people  to  govern  themselves  according  to  their  own 
good  pleasure.  Nor  were  these  the  only  advantages 
possessed  by  Mr.  Douglas.  He  was  one  of  the 
ablest  debaters  in  the  country.  To  an  almost  un- 
limited command  of  language  were  added  audacity 
and  tact,  which  made  him  a  formidable  opponent  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  filled  as  the  Senate  then 
was  with  very  able  and  accomplished  men.  Upon 
the  stump  he  had  no  equal.  His  voice  was  sonorous 
and    flexible.     Thoroughly   versed   in    the     political 


4IO 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOIN 


history  of  the  country — bold,  dashing,  self-confident, 
and  self-possessed — he  was  one  whom  very  few  men 
would  have  dared  to  encounter  in  a  public  debate. 
All  this  Mr.  Lincoln  perfectly  understood,  but  he 
knew  himself,  and  he  was  thoroughly  convinced  of 
the  justice  of  his  cause.  He  carried  his  conscience 
with  him  into  the  discussion.  He  made  no  statement 
which  he  did  not  believe  to  be  true,  took  no  position 
which  he  was  not  able  to  defend.  Less  gifted  in 
language,  he  was  clearer  in  statement,  more  per- 
suasive and  simple  in  style,  stronger  in  his  convic- 
tions, more  earnest  in  presenting  them,  and  more 
familiar  with  the  character  of  those  whom  he  was 
wont  to  call  plain  people,  than  his  opponent. 

It  can  hardly  be  said  that  he  was  a  victor  in  the 
debate,  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  when  it  closed 
the  advantage  was  not  on  the  side  of  Mr.  Douglas. 

Like  everybody  else,  I  was  greatly  interested  in  the 
debate.  Mr.  Lincoln's  speeches  were  not  only  very 
able,  but  they  left  the  impression  upon  my  mind  that 
he  possessed  the  elements  of  great  personal  popular- 
ity. So  strong  was  this  impression  that,  happening 
to  be  in  Chicago  in  i860,  when  the  Republican  Con- 
vention was  in  session,  and  being  asked  by  some  of 
the  delegates  (when  it  was  certain  that  either  Mr. 
Seward  or  Mr.  Lincoln  would  be  nominated)  to 
which  I  thought  their  votes  should  be  given,  I  did  not 
hesitate  to  say  "  that  that  depended  upon  what  they 


BY  HUGH  McCULLOCH.  41  i 

wanted  to  do — if  they  wanted  to  vindicate  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  party,  they  should  vote  for  Mr.  Seward  ; 
if  they  wanted  to  elect  a  President,  they  should  vote 
for  Mr.  Lincoln."  Mr.  Seward  had  rendered  grreat 
service  to  his  party,  of  which  he  stoocfat  the  head  ; 
his  ability  was  undoubted,  and  he  was  the  decided 
choice  of  the  delegates  from  the  Eastern  States,  but 
I  doubted  that  enough  of  the  Western  States  could 
be  carried  to  secure  his  election. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  election  precipitated  the  rebellion, 
but  the  time,  had  come,  sooner  than  had  been  ex- 
pected and  in  a  different  way,  for  the  settlement  of 
the  question  whether  the  United  States  were  a  Na- 
tion, to  which  allegiance  was  due  by  the  people,  or 
a  confederation  of  States,  from  which  any  State  or 
number  of  States  might  withdraw  by  their  own  in- 
dependent action  ;  and  of  the  equally  important 
question  whether  slavery  or  freedom  should  dom- 
inate throughout  the  Union.  These  questions  were 
settled  by  war,  and  it  is  now  quite  certain  that  they 
could  not  have  been  settled  by  any  other  means. 
The  cost  of  this  settlement  in  treasure  and  blood 
was  enormous,  but  it  was  incomparably  less  than 
would  have  been  the  evils  which  would  have  re- 
sulted from  the  nationalization  of  slavery  or  the  per- 
petual strife  which  must  have  occurred  between  the 
sections  if  the  Union  had  been  disrupted.  That  the 
election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  fortunate  for  the  coun- 


412  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOIN 

try,  and  the  whole  country,  is  generally  admitted. 
It  would  have  been  quite  impossible  for  either  of  the 
other  distinguished  men  whose  names  were  before 
the  convention  for  nomination  for  the  Presidency  to 
have  retained  the  confidence  of  the  people  through 
the  protracted  struggle  to  the  same  extent  that  he 
did. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  character  it  is  difficult  to  analyze,  so 
rare  and  seemingly  incongruous  were  its  combina- 
tions. Instead,  therefore,  of  attempting  an  analysis, 
I  must  confine  my  remarks  to  a  description  of  his 
appearance,  and  of  his  prominent  and  singular,  if 
not  inconsistent,  characteristics. 

In  form,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  tall  and  angular,  lacking 
in  compactness,  but  strong  and  sturdy,  with  great 
capacity  for  work  and  power  of  endurance.  His 
features  were  coarse,  and  to  strangers  uncomely, 
but  prepossessing  to  those  who  became  his  friends. 
His  face,  dull  and  heavy  when  in  repose,  was  all 
alight  with  intelligence  when  in  conversation.  "  I 
thought,"  said  a  lady,  "  when  I  first  saw  him  that  he 
was  one  of  the  ugliest  of  men.  Now  that  I  know 
him  well,  he  seems  to  me  to  be  perfectly  charming." 
Grave  and  sedate  in  manner,  he  was  full  of  kind  and 
gentle  emotions.  He  was  fond  of  poetry.  Shake- 
speare was  his  delight.  Few  men  could  read  with 
equal  expression  the  plays  of  the  great  dramatist. 

The  theater  had  crreat  attractions  for  him,  but  it 


BY  HUGH  McCULLOCH.  413 

was  comedy,  not  tragedy,  he  went  to  hear.  He  had 
great  enjoyment  of  the  plays  that  made  him  laugh, 
no  matter  how  absurd  and  grotesque,  and  he  gave 
expression  to  his  enjoyment  by  hearty  and  noisy 
applause.  He  was  a  man  of  strong  religious  con- 
victions, but  he  cared  nothing  for  the  dogmas  of 
the  churches,  and  had  little  respect  for  their  creeds. 
As  a  lawyer  and  advocate,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  su- 
perior in  Illinois  and  few  superiors  in  the  older 
States.  His  practice  was  not  broad  or  varied 
enough  to  require  constant  study  of  authorities, 
but  his  mind  was  keen,  clear,  discriminating,  and 
he  was  well  grounded  in  the  elementary  principles 
of  the  law.  His  arguments  before  the  court  were 
always  carefully  prepared,  pointed,  and  cogent.  Be- 
fore a  jury  he  was  especially  effective.  One  of  his 
most  distinguished  characteristics  as  an  advocate 
was  the  suppression  of  himself  in  his  arguments  to 
the  jurors.  It  was  his  aim  to  fix  the  facts,  and  the 
facts  only,  upon  their  minds.  Comprehending  per- 
fectly the  points  upon  which  the  case  depended, 
to  them  he  directed  the  attention  of  the  jury,  wast- 
ing no  words  upon  unimportant  matters ;  never 
wearisome  by  long  speeches,  with  great  aptitude 
discovering  the  characters  of  jurors,  always  intel- 
ligible and  earnest,  he  never  failed  to  interest  and 
rarely  to  convince.  The  same  qualities  were  dis- 
played   in  his  public    speeches — models    they   were 


414 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


of  clear,  simple,  and  consequently  of  forcible  speak- 


ing. 


The  first  time  I  saw  and  heard  him  was  at  Indian- 
apolis, shortly  after  the  conclusion  of  his  debate  with 
Mr.  Douelas.  Careless  of  his  attire,  ungraceful  in 
his  movements,  I  thought  as  he  came  forward  to 
address  the  audience  that  his  was  the  most  ungainly 
figure  I  had  ever  seen  upon  a  platform.  Could  this 
be  Abraham  Lincoln  whose  speeches  I  had  read 
with  so  much  interest  and  admiration — this  plain, 
dull-looking  man  the  one  who  had  successfully 
encountered  in  debate  one  of  the  most  gifted 
speakers  of  his  time?  The  question  was  speedily 
answered  by  the  speech.  The  subject  was  slavery — 
its  character,  its  incompatibility  with  Republican  in- 
stitutions, its  demoralizing  influences  upon  society, 
its  aggressiveness,  its  rights  as  limited  by  the  Consti- 
tution ;  all  of  which  were  discussed  with  such  clear- 
ness, simplicity,  earnestness,  and  force  as  to  carry  me 
with  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  country  could 
not  long  continue  part  slave  and  part  free — that 
freedom  must  prevail  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land,  or  that  the  great  Republic,  in- 
stead of  being  the  home  of  the  free  and  the  hope  of 
the  oppressed,  would  become  a  by-word  and  a  re- 
proach among  the  nations. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  a  polished  writer,  but  he 
wrote  correctly  and  with  great  precision.   In  clearness 


BY  HUGH  McCULLOCH. 


415 


of  expression,  in  conciseness,  in  the  use  of  apt  and 
appropriate  language,  which  everybody  could  un- 
derstand, it  would  be  difficult  to  find  his  superior. 
His  letters  in  explanation  and  defense  of  his  hesita- 
tion to  proclaim  freedom  to  the  slaves,  especially  his 
reply  to  Mr.  Greeley,  are  masterpieces  of  clear  and 
forcible  writing.  The  concluding  paragraph  of  his 
first  inaugural — "The  mystic  chords  of  memory, 
stretching  from  every  battle-field  and  patriot  grave 
to  every  living  heart  and  hearth-stone  all  over  this 
broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union, 
when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the 
better  angels  of  our  nature  " — is  as  happy  in  expres- 
sion as  it  is  touching  and  beautiful  in  thought. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  an  orator,  and  yet  where  in 
the  English  language  can  be  found  eloquence  of 
higher  tone  or  more  magnetic  power  than  was  ex- 
hibited in  his  little  speech  at  the  consecration  of  the 
battle-field  cemetery  near  Gettysburg  ? — 

"  Four-score  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers 
brought  forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  con- 
ceived in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition 
that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we  are  en- 
gaged in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that  na- 
tion, or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated, 
can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle-field 
of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  deditate  a  portion  of 
that  field  as  a  final  resting-place  for  those  who  here 


4l6  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is 
altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

"  But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate — we 
cannot  consecrate — we  cannot  hallow  this  ground. 
The  brave  men  who  struggled  here  have  consecrated 
it  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The 
world  will  little  note  nor  long  remember  what  we 
say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here. 
It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here 
to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here 
have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is,  rather,  for  us 
to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  be- 
fore us,  that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  in- 
creased devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave 
the  last  full  measure  of  devotion  ;  that  we  here 
highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died 
in  vain  ;  that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a 
new  birth  of  freedom  ;  and  that  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  per- 
ish from  the  earth." 

He  followed  Edward  Everett,  whose  speech  was 
worthy  of  his  reputation  as  one  of  the  most  accom- 
plished orators  of  the  age,  and  when  he  concluded, 
it  is  said  that  Mr.  Everett,  taking-  Mr.  Lincoln's  hand, 
remarked  :  "  My  speech  will  soon  be  forgotten  ; 
yours  never  will  be.  How  gladly  would  I  exchange 
my  hundred  pages  for  your  twenty  lines  ! " 

Mr.  Lincoln  excelled  as  a  story-teller.     The  habit 


BV  HUGH  Mcculloch.  417 

of  story-telling  was  formed  in  his  early  professional 
life,  when  in  company  with  a  few  other  prominent 
members  of  the  bar,  he  visited  counties,  at  long  dis- 
tances from  his  own,  to  try  important  cases.  The 
journeys  from  county  to  county  were  long  and  pro- 
tracted, and  as  there  were  no  newspapers  nor  books 
in  the  cabins  where  they  spent  the  nights,  these 
lawyer  circuit-riders,  as  they  were  called,  killed  the 
time,  as  the  saying  was,  by  telling  stories,  in  which 
invention  as  well  as  memory  was  brought  into  play. 
In  inventing  stories  and  skill  in  telling  them  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  the  acknowledged  leader.  The  habit 
of  story-telling,  thus  formed,  became  part  of  his  nat- 
ure, and  he  gave  free  rein  to  it,  even  when  the  fate 
of  the  nation  seemed  to  be  trembling  in  the  balance. 
Some  eight  or  ten  days  after  the  first  battle  of 
Bull  Run,  when  Washington  was  utterly  demoralized 
by  its  result,  I  called  upon  him  at  the  White  House, 
in  company  with  a  few  friends,  and  was  amazed 
when,  referring  to  something  which  had  been  said 
by  one  of  the  company  about  the  battle  which  was 
so  disastrous  to  the  Union  forces,  he  remarked,  in  his 
usual  quiet  manner,  "  That  reminds  me  of  a  story," 
which  he  told  in  a  manner  so  humorous  as  to  indi- 
cate that  he  was  free  from  care  and  apprehension. 
This  to  me  was  surprising.  I  could  not  then  un- 
derstand how  the  President  could  feel  like  telling  a 
story  when  Washington  was  in  danger  of  being  capt- 


41 8  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

ured,  and  the  whole  North  was  dismayed  ;  and  I  left 
the  White  House  with  the  feeling  that  I  had  been 
mistaken  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  character,  and  that  his 
election  might  prove  to  have  been  a  fatal  mistake. 
This  feeling  was  changed  from  day  to  day  as  the 
war  went  on ;  but  it  was  not  entirely  overcome  until 
I  went  to  Washington  in  the  spring  of  1863,  and  as 
an  officer  of  the  government  was  permitted  to  have 
free  intercourse  with  him.  I  then  perceived  that 
my  estimate  of  him  before  his  election  was  well 
grounded,  and  that  he  possessed  even  higher  qual- 
ities than  I  had  given  him  credit  for ;  that  he  was  a 
man  of  sound  judgment,  great  singleness  and  te- 
nacity of  purpose,  and  extraordinary  sagacity  ;  that 
story-telling  was  to  him  a  safety-valve,  and  that  he 
indulged  in  it,  not  only  for  the  pleasure  it  afforded 
him,  but  for  a  temporary  relief  from  oppressing 
cares  ;  that  the  habit  had  been  so  cultivated  that  he 
could  make  a  story  illustrate  a  sentiment  and  give 
point  to  an  argument.  Many  of  his  stories  were  as 
apt  and  instructive  as  the  best  of  v^sop's  fables. 
All  of  his  stories,  however,  were  not  of  this  char- 
acter. Next  to  the  theater  he  liked  to  tell  stories 
and  to  listen  to  them.  The  evening  of  the  day 
on  which  the  reports  of  Sheridan's  great  victory 
in  the  Valley  of  Virginia  were  received  I  spent 
with  him,  in  company  with  Mr.  Randall,  Postmas- 
ter-General,  and    a  few    of    Mr.    Lincoln's    personal 


BY  HUGH  McCULLOCH.  ^^jq 

friends,  at  the  Soldiers'  Home.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in 
the  best  of  spirits,  and  Randall  was  also  a  good 
story-teller.  For  two  hours  there  was  a  constant 
run  of  story-telling — Lincoln  leading  and  Randall 
following — a  contest  between  them  as  to  which 
should  tell  the  best  story  and  provoke  the  heartiest 
laughter.  The  stories  were  not  such  as  would  be 
listened  to  with  pleasure  by  very  refined  ears,  but 
they  were  exceedingly  funny.  The  verdict  of  the 
listeners  was  that,  while  the  stories  were  equally 
good,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  displayed  the  most  humor 
and  skill. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  severely  denounced  not  only  by 
the  out-and-out  Abolitionists,  but  by  men  less  pro- 
nounced in  their  antislavery  views,  such  as  Mr. 
Wade  and  Mr.  Greeley,  for  his  delay  in  emancipat- 
ing the  slaves,  under  his  war  power,  as  it  was  called. 
This  delay  was  caused  by  his  doubts  as  to  whether 
the  public  sentiment  of  the  North,  with  which  he 
always  kept  abreast,  was  prepared  for  a  measure 
so  momentous  and  far-reaching ;  by  his  profound 
respect  for  the  Constitution  which  he  had  sworn  to 
maintain  ;  and  especially  by  his  fears  that  emancipa- 
tion would  retard,  if  it  did  not  prevent,  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Union.  In  his  letter  to  Mr.  Greeley,  on 
the  22d  of  August,  1862,  he  said  : 

"My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and 
not  either  to  save  or  destroy  slavery.      If    I   could 


.^Q  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slaves,  I  would 
do  it ;  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I 
would  do  it ;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  some 
and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  do  it." 

It  must  be  admitted  that  this  language  was  hardly 
consistent  with  the  opinion  he  had  so  frequently  ex- 
pressed before  his  election,  that  the  United  States 
could  not  continue  to  be  part  slave,  part  free,  or  with 
his  well-known  abhorrence  of  slavery  ;  but  it  was  in 
perfect  harmony  with  his  utterances  after  he  became 
President,  and  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  the  gov- 
ernment in  prosecuting  the  war.      He  did,  however, 
subject  himself  to  the    charge    of  inconsistency,   by 
exempting  from  the  operation  of    his  proclamation 
West  Virginia  and  such  parts  of  the  other  Southern 
States   as  were   in    the    possession    of   the   Federal 
forces ;  by  proclaiming  freedom  to  the  slave  where 
his  authority  could  not  be    exercised,  and    leaving, 
where  it  was  felt  and  acknowledged,  many  thousands 
in  bondage.      Nothing  was  or  could  be  gained  by  not 
including  all  slaves  in  his  proclamation  of  freedom, 
and  his  failure  to  do  it  greatly  prejudiced  the  Union 
cause   in  Great  Britain  and  other  European  states. 
The  right   to  confiscate  the  property  that  could  be 
reached  in  the  South  was  unquestionable  ;  his  right 
to  liberate  the  slaves,  which  was  one  form  of  confis- 
cation, where  the  Confederate  authority  was  domi- 
nant, was  at   least  doubtful.       Fortunately   for  the 


B  V  HUGH  McCULLOCH.  42  I 

country,  this  was  not  left  an  open  question.  The 
doom  of  slavery  in  the  United  States  was  sealed  by 
the  amendments  of  the  Constitution  soon  after  the 
war  was  ended. 

Whether  Mr,  Lincoln  would  have  been  competent 
to  deal  with  the  questions  which  were  presented 
after  the  war,  in  the  reconstruction  of  the  Southern 
States — whether  he  would  have  exhibited  the  quali- 
ties of  a  statesman — is,  I  know,  regarded  by  many  as 
somewhat  doubtful  ;  but  it  is,  I  think,  only  fair  to 
infer,  from  the  ability  which  he  displayed  as  Presi- 
dent, that  he  would  have  been  equal  to  the  new 
duties  which  he  would  have  been  called  to  perform, 
if  he  had  completed  the  term  for  which  he  had  been 
elected.  He  was  well  versed  in  constitutional  law, 
his  mind  was  well  balanced,  he  was  free  from  vindic- 
tiveness,  and  he  was  eminently  patriotic.  He  would 
not  have  quarreled  with  his  party,  as  his  successor, 
Mr.  Johnson,  did.  He  had  the  confidence  of  the 
people,  and  could,  therefore,  have  given  direction  to 
reconstructive  legislation.  His  aim  would  have  been 
to  bring  about  by  honorable  conciliation  harmonious 
relations  between  the  sections,  to  secure  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  government  without  interference  with  the 
reserved  rights  of  the  States.  There  is  nothing  on 
his  record  to  indicate  that  he  would  have  favored  the 
immediate  and  full  enfranchisement  of  those  who, 
having  been  always  in  servitude,  were  unfitted  for 


42: 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


an  intelligent  and  independent  use  of  the  ballot.  In 
the  plan  for  the  rehabilitation  of  the  South  which  he 
and  his  Cabinet  had  partially  agreed  upon,  and  which 
Mr.  Johnson  and  the  same  Cabinet  endeavored  to 
perfect  and  carry  out,  no  provision  was  made  for 
negro  suffrage.  This  question  was  purposely  left 
open  for  further  consideration  and  for  Congressional 
action,  under  such  amendments  of  the  Constitution 
as  the  changed  condition  of  the  country  might  ren- 
der necessary.  From  some  of  his  incidental  expres- 
sions, and  from  his  well-known  opinions  upon  the 
subject  of  suffrage  and  the  States  to  regulate  it,  my 
conclusion  is  that  he  would  have  been  disposed  to 
let  that  question  remain  as  it  stood  before  the  war ; 
with,  however,  such  amendments  of  the  Constitution 
as  would  have  prevented  any  but  those  who  were 
permitted  to  vote  in  Federal  elections  from  being 
included  in  the  enumeration  for  representatives  in 
Congress,  thus  inducing  the  recent  slave  States, 
for  the  purpose  of  increasing  their  Congressional  in- 
fluence and  power,  to  give  the  ballot  to  black  men  as 
well  as  white. 

Nor  would  Mr.  Lincoln  have  been  vindictive 
against  the  masses  who  had  been  in  arms  against 
the  government.  Educated,  as  the  people  of  the 
South  had  been,  in  the  doctrine  that  the  Union  was 
a  confederation  of  States,  from  which  any  State  or 
number  of  States  might  withdraw  when,in  the  opinion 


B  Y  H  UGH  Mc  C  ULL  0  CH. 


423 


of  a  majority  of  their  citizens,  it  had  failed  to  accom- 
plish the  object  for  which  it  was  formed,  he  would 
not  have  regarded  the  attempted  secession  as  being 
treason,  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term  ;  nor 
would  he  have  regarded  as  traitors  any  of  the  South- 
ern people  except  those  who,  while  continuing  to 
hold  Federal  offices  and  to  draw  their  pay  from  the 
Federal  Treasury,  used  the  influence  of  their  posi- 
tions to  overthrow  the  government  whose  servants 
they  were.  For  thein  he  would  have  favored  no  for- 
giveness, to  them  he  would  have  granted  no  pardons. 
They  were  guilty  of  treason,  for  which  there  could 
be  no  palliation.  These,  however,  were  compara- 
tively few.  The  war  on  the  part  of  the  South  was 
revolutionary.  It  was  not  only  so  considered  by 
other  nations,  but  by  those  who  administered  the 
government  after  the  war  was  ended.  Officers  of 
high  standing  in  the  Confederate  army  were  ap- 
pointed to  Federal  offices  by  General  Grant.  The 
Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy,  when  subse- 
quently in  Congress,  was  treated  with  great  respect 
by  both  parties.  Two  of  the  members  of  the  pres- 
ent Cabinet,  and  nearly  every  one  of  the  Southern 
Senators  in  the  last  and  present  Congress,  held 
distinguished  civil  or  military  positions  under  the 
Confederate  Government.  This  would  not,  could 
not,  have  been  the  case  had  they  been  guilty  of 
treason.     They  were  revolutionists,  not  traitors,  and 


^24  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

as  such  they  would  have  been  treated  by  Mr.  Lin- 
cohi. 

Nor  would  Mr.  Lincoln  have  appointed  to  South- 
ern offices  such  men  as,  unfortunately,  were  ap- 
pointed, whose  chief  mission  seemed  to  have  been 
to  enrich  themselves,  overload  the  States  with  debt, 
and  perpetuate  the  sectional  discord  which  had  al- 
ways, to  some  extent,  existed,  and  which  had  been 
aggravated  and  intensified  by  the  war.  His  sym- 
pathy was  as  broad  as  his  patriotism.  Devoted  to 
the  Union — not  merely  a  geographical  union,  but 
a  true  national  Union — his  aim  would  have  been 
to  build  up  the  waste  places,  give  new  life  to 
Southern  industry,  and  bind  together  North  and 
South,  the  people  of  the  country  and  the  whole 
country,  by  ties  of  mutual  respect,  brotherhood  and 
interest. 

In  what,  then,  consisted  Mr.  Lincoln's  greatness  ? 
Not  in  his  legal  acquirements  ;  not  in  his  skill  as  a 
writer  or  effectiveness  as  a  speaker  ;  not  in  his  ex- 
ecutive ability — although  in  these  respects  he  com- 
manded great  respect ;  but  in  the  strength  of  his  con- 
victions ;  his  unwavering  adherence  to  the  principles 
which  he  avowed  ;  his  personal  uprightness ;  his 
sound  judgment ;  his  knowledge  of  the  people, 
gained  rather  by  a  study  of  himself  than  of  them  ; 
his  love  of  country  ;  his  humanity  ;  his  sublime 
faith  in  Republican  institutions. 


B  Y  HUGH  Mcculloch.  425 

It  was  these  qualities,  rarely  found  in  combina- 
tion, which  made  him  great  and  fitted  him  for  the 
high  position  which  he  filled  with  so  much  credit  to 
himself   and  with   lastinor  honor  and  benefit  to  the 


nation. 


HUGH  Mcculloch. 


ChxAXP^^M^  i^^A^y^^ 


XXIV. 

Chauncey  M.  Depew. 

I  SAW  Mr.  Lincoln  a  number  of  times  during  the 
canvass  for  his  second  election.  The  character- 
istic which  struck  me  most  was  his  superabundance 
of  common  sense.  His  power  of  managing  men,  of 
deciding  and  avoiding  difficult  questions,  surpassed 
that  of  any  man  I  ever  met.  A  keen  insight  of 
human  nature  had  been  cultivated  by  the  trials  and 
struggles  of  his  early  life.  He  knew  the  people  and 
how  to  reach  them  better  than  any  man  of  his  time. 
I  heard  him  tell  a  great  many  stories,  many  of 
which  would  not  do  exactly  for  the  drawing-room  ; 
but  for  the  person  he  wished  to  reach,  and  the  ob- 
ject he  desired  to  accomplish  with  the  individual, 
the  story  did  more  than  any  argument  could  have 
done. 

He  said  to  me  once,  in  reference  to  some  sharp 
criticisms  which  had  been  made  upon  his  story- 
telling :  "  They  say  I  tell  a  great  many  stories  ;  I 
reckon  I  do,  but  I  have  found  in  the  course  of  a 
long  experience  that  common  people  " — and  repeat- 
ing it — "common    people,   take    them    as  they  run, 


428  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

are  more  easily  influenced  and  informed  through 
the  medium  of  a  broad  illustration  than  in  any  other 
way,  and  as  to  what  the  hypercritical  few  may  think, 
I  don't  care." 

He  said  :  "  I  have  originated  but  two  stories  in 
my  life,  but  I  tell  tolerably  well  other  people's 
stories."  He  said  that,  "  riding  the  circuit  for  many 
years  and  stopping  at  country  taverns  where  were 
gathered  the  lawyers,  jurymen,  witnesses  and  clients, 
they  would  sit  up  all  night  narrating  to  each  other 
their  life  adventures ;  and  that  the  things  which 
happened  to  an  original  people,  in  a  new  country, 
surrounded  by  novel  conditions,  and  told  with  the 
descriptive  power  and  exaggeration  which  character- 
ized such  men,  supplied  him  with  an  exhaustless 
fund  of  anecdote  which  could  be  made  applicable 
for  enforcing  or  refuting  an  argument  better  than 
all  the  invented   stories  of  the  world." 

Several  times  when  I  saw  him,  he  seemed  to  be 
oppressed  not  only  with  the  labors  of  the  position, 
but  especially  with  care  and  anxiety  growing  out  of 
the  intense  responsibility  which  he  felt  for  the  issue 
of  the  conflict  and  the  lives  which  were  lost.  He 
knew  the  whole  situation  better  than  any  man  in  the 
administration,  and  virtually  carried  on  in  his  own 
mind  not  only  the  civic  side  of  the  government, 
but  all  the  campaigns.  And  I  knew  when  he  threw 
himself  (as'  he  did  once  when   I   was   there)   on  a 


BY   CHAUNCEY  M.   DEFEW.  429 

loung-e,  and  rattled  off  story  after  story,  that  it  was 
his  method  of  rehef,  without  which  he  might  have 
gone  out  of  his  mind,  and  certainly  would  not  have 
been  able  to  have  accomplished  anything  like  the 
amount  of  work  which  he  did. 

Governor  Seymour  was  elected  on  the  Democratic 
ticket  in  1862  as  Governor  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  the  following  year  I  was  elected  at  the 
head  of  the  Republican  ticket  as  Secretary  of  State. 
A  law  was  passed  by  the  Legislature,  which  was  Re- 
publican, to  take  the  soldiers'  vote.  Well,  ordinarily 
this  duty  would  have  devolved  upon  the  Governor. 
Because  the  Legislature  in  this  instance  imposed  it 
upon  me,  I  spent  much  time  in  Washington  en- 
deavoring to  get  the  data  to  send  out  the  necessary 
papers  enabling  the  New  York  soldiers  to  vote. 
Under  the  Act  each  soldier  was  to  make  out  his 
ballot,  and  it  was  to  be  certified  by  the  commanding 
officer  of  his  company  or  regiment,  and  then  sent  to 
some  friend  at  his  last  voting  place  to  be  deposited 
on  election  day.  It  was  therefore  necessary  for  me 
to  ascertain  the  location  of  every  New  York  com- 
pany and  regiment.  They  were  scattered  all  over 
the  South,  and  in  all  the  armies.  Secretary  Stanton 
refused  to  give  me  any  information  whatever,  and, 
finally,  with  a  great  deal  of  temper,  informed  me  one 
day  that  information  of  that  character  given  to  poli- 
ticians would   reach    the    newspapers,    and    through 


430  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

them  the  enemy,  and  in  that  way  the  Confederates 
would  know  by  the  location  of  the  New  York  troops 
precisely  the  condition  and  situation  of  every  army 
corps,  brigade,  and  battery.  As  I  was  leaving  the 
War  Department  I  met  Mr.  Washburne  and  the 
Marshal  of  the  district  coming  in.  Mr.  Washburne 
said  :  "  Depew,  you  seem  to  be  in  a  state  of  con- 
siderable excitement."  I  told  him  of  my  interview 
with  Mr.  Stanton,  and  that  I  was  going  home  to 
New  York,  and  would  publish  in  the  morning  papers 
a  card  that  the  soldiers'  votes  could  not  be  taken, 
owing  to  the  action  of  Secretary  Stanton.  And  I 
added  :  "  I  can  inform  you  that  a  failure  to  get 
them  will  lose  Mr.  Lincoln  the  electoral  vote  of 
New  York."  Mr.  Washburne  said  :  "  You  don't  know 
Lincoln  ;  he  is  as  good  a  politician  as  he  is  a  Presi- 
dent, and  if  there  was  no  other  way  to  get  those 
votes  he  would  go  round  with  a  carpet-bag  and  col- 
lect them  himself."  He  then  asked  me  to  wait  until 
the  President  could  be  informed  as  to  the  facts.  I 
stood  in  the  corridor  leading  to  Mr.  Stanton's  room, 
and  in  about  fifteen  minutes  an  orderly  came  out 
and  said  the  Secretary  wanted  to  see  Mr.  Depew. 
I  went  in,  and  Secretary  Stanton  met  me  with  the 
most  cordial  politeness  ;  inquired  when  I  arrived  in 
Washington,  if  I  had  any  business  with  his  depart- 
ment, and  whether  he  could  do  anything  for  me.  I 
restated  to  him  what  I   had  already  stated  at  least 


BY  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW.  431 

half  a  dozen  times  before.  He  sent  me  with  an 
order  so  peremptory  to  the  head  of  one  of  the  bu- 
reaus, that  I  left  Washington  that  night  with  a  list 
and  location  of  every  organization  of  New  York 
troops. 

When  I  reached  New  York  I  summoned  the  offi- 
cers of  the  express  companies  of  that  day  to  know  if 
they  could  get  the  packages  containing  the  blanks 
for  the  soldiers'  votes  to  the  various  regfiments  and 
companies  and  batteries  of  New  York  troops,  scat- 
tered as  they  were  all  over  the  South.  Without 
consultation,  they  said  it  could  not  be  done.  I  then 
sent  for  old  Mr.  Butterfield,  the  oriofinator  of  the 
American  Express  Company,  and  stated  the  case  to 
him.  He  said  they  were  organized  for  such  pur- 
poses, and  if  they  could  not  accomplish  them  they 
had  better  disband.  He  then  undertook  to  arrange 
through  the  various  express  companies,  by  his  own 
direct  superintendence,  to  secure  the  safe  delivery  in 
time  to  every  company — and  he  succeeded. 

This  anecdote  illustrates  the  difference  between 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Stanton.  Mr.  Stanton,  in  his 
anxiety  to  protect  the  inviolability  of  the  secrets  of 
his  department,  was  unable  to  see  that  if  the  ad- 
ministration of  which  he  was  a  member  was  defeated 
in  the  election,  the  most  disastrous  result  to  the 
cause  which  he  had  at  heart  might  follow,  while 
Mr.  Lincoln  comprehended  at  once  that   the  minor 


432  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

danger  was  of  no  moment  in  comparison  with  the 
end  to  be  gained. 

While  Mr.  Lincoln's  appreciation  of  humor  was 
wonderful,  I  do  not  think  his  estimate  of  humor  was 
very  critical.  He  told  me  that,  in  his  judgment,  one 
of  the  two  best  things  he  ever  originated  was  this  : 
He  was  trying  a  cause  in  Illinois  where  he  appeared 
for  a  prisoner  charged  with  aggravated  assault  and 
battery.  The  complainant  had  told  a  horrible  story 
of  the  attack,  which  his  appearance  fully  justified, 
when  the  district  attorney  handed  the  witness  over 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  for  cross-examination.  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  he  had  no  testimony,  and  unless  he  could  break 
down  the  complainant's  story  he  saw  no  way  out. 
He  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  witness  was 
a  bumptious  man,  who  rather  prided  himself  upon 
his  smartness  in  repartee,  and  so,  after  looking  at 
him  for  some  minutes,  he  said  :  "  Well,  my  friend, 
how  much  ground  did  you  and  my  client  here  fight 
over?"  The  fellow  answered  :  "  About  six  acres." 
"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "don't  you  think  that  this 
is  an  almighty  small  crop  of  fight  to  gather  from 
such  a  big  piece  of  ground  ?  "  The  jury  laughed,  the 
court  and  district  attorney  and  complainant  all 
joined  in,  and  the  case  was  laughed  out  of  court. 

His  skill  in  parrying  troublesome  questions  was 
wonderful.  I  was  in  Washington  at  a  critical  period 
of  the  war,  when  the  late  John   Ganson,  of  Buffalo, 


BV  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEIV.  433 

one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  in  our  State,  and  who, 
though  elected  as  a  Democrat,  supported  all  Mr. 
Lincoln's  war  measures,  called  on  him  for  explana- 
tions. Mr.  Ganson  was  very  bald,  with  perfectly 
smooth  face,  and  had  a  most  direct  and  aggressive 
way  of  stating  his  views,  or  of  demanding  what  he 
thought  he  was  entitled  to.  He  said  :  "  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, I  have  supported  all  of  your  measures,  and 
think  I  am  entitled  to  your  confidence.  We  are  vot- 
ing and  acting  in  the  dark  in  Congress,  and  I  de- 
mand to  know — think  I  have  the  rig-ht  to  ask  and  to 
know — what  is  the  present  situation,  and  what  are  the 
prospects  and  conditions  of  the  several  campaigns 
and  armies."  Mr.  Lincoln  looked  at  him  quizzically 
for  a  moment,  and  then  said  :  "  Ganson,  how  clean 
you  shave  !  "  Most  men  would  have  been  offended, 
but  Ganson  was  too  broad  and  intelligent  a  man  not 
to  see  the  point  and  retire  at  once,  satisfied,  from 
the  field. 

The  late  Schuyler  Colfax  told  me  that  he  was 
present  at  an  interview  accorded  to  the  represent- 
atives of  the  moneyed  interests  of  New  York,  wdien 
the  Merriniac  escaped  from  Hampton  Roads  and 
was  supposed  to  be  making  its  way  to  that  port. 

The  delegation  arose  one  after  another,  one  man 
stating  that  he  was  worth  $10,000,000,  and  another 
that  he  represented  $50,000,000,  and  another  that  he 

was  worth  several  millions  of  dollars  and  represented 

28 


434  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

many  times  as  many  millions  more  ;  and  that  they 
had  paid  their  taxes,  subscribed  to  the  Government's 
loans,  and  ought  to  be  protected.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  : 
"  Well,  gentlemen,  the  Government  has  no  vessel  as 
yet,  that  I  know  of,  which  can  sink  the  Merrimac, 
and  our  resources,  both  of  money  and  credit,  are 
strained  to  the  utmost.  But  if  I  had  as  much  money 
as  you  say  you  have  got,  and  was  as  '  skeered  '  as 
you  seem  to  be,  I  would  find  means  to  prevent  the 
Merrimac  ever  reaching  my  property." 

Mr.  Lincoln's  avidity  for  a  new  story  was  very 
great.  I  remember  once  at  a  reception,  as  the  line 
was  passing  and  he  was  shaking  hands  with  each  one 
in  the  usual  way,  that  he  stopped  a  friend  of  mine 
who  was  moving  immediately  ahead  of  me.  He 
whispered  something  in  his  ear,  and  then  listened  at- 
tentively for  five  minutes — the  rest  of  us  waiting, 
devoured  with  curiosity  as  to  what  great  secret  of 
state  could  have  so  singularly  interrupted  the  festival. 
I  seized  my  friend  the  instant  we  passed  the  Presi- 
dent, as  did  everybody  else  who  knew  him,  to  find 
out  what  the  communication  meant.  I  learned  that 
he  had  told  Mr.  Lincoln  a  first-class  anecdote  a  few 
days  before,  and  the  President,  having  forgotten 
the  point,  had  arrested  the  movement  of  three  thou- 
sand guests  in  order  to  get  it  on  the  spot. 

He  had  a  very  sharp  controversy  with  Mr,  Greeley 
with  reference   to   what  was  known    as  the   Clifton 


BY   CHAUNCEY  M.   DEPEIV.  435 

House   proposition   for  the   settlement   of  the  war. 
Thompson,  Clay   and  Saunders  appeared  at  the  Clif- 
ton  House,   Canada,  and   gave   out  that  they  were 
commissioners  from   the  Confederate    Government, 
entitled  to  treat   for  peace.      Mr.   Greeley  wrote   a 
letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  which  he  said,  among  other 
things,  that,  if  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  meet  these  com- 
missioners in  the  same  spirit,  he  would  be  held  per- 
sonally responsible,  by  his  countrymen  and  by  poster- 
ity, for  every  drop  of  blood  that  was  thereafter  shed, 
every  dollar  that  was  thereafter  spent.     Mr.  Lincoln 
then  wrote  a  private  letter  to  Mr.  Greeley,  requesting 
him  to  go  quietly  to  Niagara  Falls  to  see  the  alleged 
commissioners  (two  of  whom  Mr.  Greeley  knew  in- 
timately   as    old    Whig    politicians),  and    ascertain 
whether  they  had  any  credentials,  then  report  to  him. 
Instead  of  that,  Mr.  Greeley  sat  himself  down  at  the 
Cataract  House  as  a  sort  of  minister  plenipotentiary, 
and,  surrounded  by  a  cloud  of  reporters,  proceeded 
to  communicate  by  formal  messages  with  the  gentle- 
men at  the  Clifton  House.     The  matter  became  so 
embarrassing  to  the  government,  that  Mr.    Lincoln 
recalled  Mr.   Greeley,  and  issued   his    famous   "To 
all  whom  it  may  concern  ; "  saying  in  substance  that, 
if  any  one  was  authorized  by  the  Confederate  Gov- 
ernment to  treat  for  peace,  he  should  have  safe  con- 
duct to  Washington  and  return. 

It  turned  out  that  Thompson,  Clay   and  Saunders 


43^  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

had  no  authorization  whatever,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  sus- 
pected. Mr.  Greeley,  however,  never  would  believe 
this,  and  every  few  days  he  criticised  the  conduct  of 
the  President  with  great  severity.  It  annoyed  Mr. 
Lincoln  probably  more  than  anything  which  hap- 
pened during  his  administration. 

He  was  talking  the  matter  over  one  day,  and  com- 
plaining of  the  injustice  to  himself  involved  in  Mr. 
Greeley's  criticisms,  and  the  false  light  in  which  they 
put  him  before  the  country.  A  friend  of  mine  who 
enjoyed  Mr.  Lincoln's  confidence,  said,  with  great 
earnestness  : 

"  Why  don't  you  publish  these  facts  in  a  card  ; 
they  will  be  printed  in  every  newspaper  in  the 
United  States  ?  The  people  will  then  understand 
exactly  your  position,  and  your  vindication  will  be 
complete." 

Mr.  Lincoln  replied  :  "  Yes,  all  the  newspapers  will 
publish  my  letter,  and  so  will  Greeley.  The  next 
day  he  will  take  a  line  and  comment  upon  it,  and 
he  will  keep  it  up,  in  that  way,  until,  at  the  end  of 
three  weeks,  I  will  be  convicted  out  of  my  own 
mouth  of  all  the  things  which  he  charges  against  me. 
No  man,  whether  he  be  private  citizen  or  President 
of  the  United  States,  can  successfully  carry  on  a  con- 
troversy with  a  great  newspaper,  and  escape  destruc- 
tion, unless  he  owns  a  newspaper  equally  great,  with 
a  circulation  in  the  same  neighborhood." 


BY  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW.  437 

While  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  the  broadest  sense  a 
statesman — comprehending  thoroughly  the  situation 
as  it  stood,  the  things  necessary  to  be  done  to  re- 
establish the  unity  of  the  Republic  on  a  permanent 
basis,  and  the  materials  with  which  he  had  to  bring 
about  the  desired  results — he  was  at  the  same  time 
a  thoroughly  practical  politician.  He  knew  the 
value  of  "  workers,"  as  they  are  called,  of  trained 
politicians,  of  political  methods,  and  precisely  how 
to  utilize  them,  better  than  any  man  in  his  Cabinet 
or  out  of  it,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Thurlow 
Weed. 

When  we  come  to  consider,  however,  his  place 
in  history,  the  human  side  of  his  character,  his 
humor,  his  fondness  for  anecdote,  his  keen  appre- 
hension of  character,  and  his  rough-and-ready  way  of 
handling  men,  will  be  forgotten.  He  did  enough  of 
solid  and  enduring  work  to  place  him  among  the 
very  few  supremely  great  men  this  country  has  pro- 
duced. No  conditions  had  before  existed  nor  can 
ever  again  arise  which  will  put  it  in  the  power  of  an- 
other statesman  to  issue  an  emancipation  proclama- 
tion. 

His  controversy  with  Douglas  and  his  speech  at 
Gettysburg  will  continue  him  in  the  front  rank  of 
American  Presidents,  while,  more  and  more,  as  the 
facts  are  sifted,  and  minor  details  drop  out  so  that 
only  the  great  salient  points  of  the  civil  war  and   its 


438  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  UN  COIN. 

results  are  seen,  the  world  will  find  that  he  discov- 
ered first  the  weaknesses  of  generals,  and  removed 
them  ;  the  defects  of  plan  of  campaign,  and  repaired 
them  ;  and  that  he  was  not  only  one  of  the  greatest 
of  constructive  statesmen,  but  that  he  was  also  a 
general  of  the  rarest  ability. 

CHAUNCEY    M.  DEPEW. 


/jCL^iri,^ 


XXV. 

David  R.  Locke. 

To  write  recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  a 
pleasant  task.  The  greatest  man,  in  some  re- 
spects, who  ever  lived,  and  in  all  respects  the  most 
lovable — a  man  whose  great  work  gave  him  the  heart 
of  every  human  being— with  a  heart — throughout 
the  civilized  world,  and  whose  tragic  death  made  a 
world  sigh  in  pity.  It  was  an  honor  to  know  him, 
and  more  than  an  honor  to  be  approved  by  him. 

The  first  time  I  saw  the  great  and  good  Lincoln 
(alas!  that  "great"  and  "good"  cannot  be  more  fre- 
quently associated  in  speaking  of  public  men)  was 
at  Quincy,  111.,  in  October — I  think  it  was — 1858. 
It  was  at  the  close  of  the  greatest  political  struggle 
this  country  ever  witnessed.  Stephen  A.  Douglas 
was  the  acknowledged  champion  of  the  Democratic 
Party,  a  position  he  had  held  unquestioned  for 
years.  He  came  into  his  heritage  of  leadership  at 
an  unfortunate  time,  just  when  the  scepter  was  de- 
parting from  the  organization  which  he  had  headed, 
but  he  was  especially  unfortunate  in  being  pitted 
against  the  most  honest  statesman  in  the  opposition, 


440  REMINISCENCES  OE  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

a  man  upon  whose  face  the  Creator  had  set  the 
assurance  of  absolute,  unselfish  integrity — of  one 
whose  outward  seeming  was  a  true  index  of  the 
inward  man.  Douglas  was  perhaps  as  honest  as 
politicians  usually  are  ;  he  had  doubtless  worked 
himself  up  to  the  point  of  actually  believing  the  lies 
which  he  had  fashioned  to  subserve  his  own  ends  ; 
but  Lincoln  had  never  so  deceived  himself.  He  was 
absolutely  honest — honest  all  the  way  through — and 
in  face  and  manner  satisfied  all  men  that  he  was 
so.  What  might  happen  to  him  never  influenced 
either  his  advocacy  or  opposition  of  any  measure 
that  might  come  before  the  people. 

A  mere  politician  like  Douglas,  who  was  so  full  of 
self  that  there  was  room  for  nothing  else,  was 
very  indiscreet  in  trying  conclusions  before  the  peo- 
ple with  any  such  man  as  Lincoln.  The  average 
instinct  of  the  masses  in  such  matters  is  unerr- 
ing. 

I  found  Mr.  Lincoln  in  a  room  of  a  hotel,  sur- 
rounded by  admirers,  who  had  made  the  discovery 
that  one  who  had  previously  been  considered  merely 
a  curious  compound  of  genius  and  simplicity  was 
a  really  great  man.  When  Lincoln  was  put  forward 
as  the  antagonist  of  the  hitherto  invincible  Doug- 
las, it  was  with  fear  and  trembling,  with  the  expect- 
ancy of  defeat ;  but  this  mature  David  of  the  new 
faith  had  met  the  Goliath  of  the  old,  and  had  prac- 


BV  DAVID  R.    LOCKE.  44 1 

tically  slain  him.  He  had  swept  over  the  State  like 
a  cyclone — not  a  raging,  devastating  cyclone,  the 
noise  of  which  equaled  its  destructive  power,  but  a 
modest  and  unassuming  force,  which  was  the  more 
powerful  because  the  force  could  not  be  seen.  It 
was  the  cause  which  won,  but  in  other  hands  than 
Lincoln's  it  might  have  failed.  Therefore,  wherever 
he  went  crowds  of  admiring  men  followed  him,  all 
eager  to  worship  at  the  new  shrine  around  which 
such  glories  were  gathering. 

I  succeeded  in  obtaining  an  interview  with  him 
after  the  crowd  had  departed,  and  I  esteem  it 
something  to  be  proud  of  that  he  seemed  to  take 
a  likinof  to  me.  He  talked  to  me  without  reserve. 
It  was  many  years  ago,  but  I  shall  never  forget  it. 

He  sat  in  the  room  with  his  boots  off,  to  relieve 
his  very  large  feet  from  the  pain  occasioned  by  con- 
tinuous standing  ;  or,  to  put  it  in  his  own  words  :  "I 
like  to  give  my  feet  a  chance  to  breathe."  He  had 
removed  his  coat  and  vest,  dropped  one  suspender 
from  his  shoulder,  taken  off  his  necktie  and  collar, 
and  thus  comfortably  attired,  or  rather  unattired, 
he  sat  tilted  back  in  one  chair  with  his  feet  upon 
another  in  perfect  ease.  He  seemed  to  dislike  cloth- 
iftg,  and  in  privacy  wore  as  little  of  it  as  he  could. 
I  remember  the  picture  as  though  I  saw  it  but  yes- 
terday. 

Those  who  accuse  Lincoln  of  frivolity  never  knew 


442  KEMIXISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

him.      I    never  saw  a  more  thoughtful  face,  I  never 
saw  a  more  dignified  face,  I  never  saw  so  sad  a  face. 
He  had  humor  of  which  he  was  totally  unconscious, 
but  it  was   not  frivolity.      He  said  wonderfully  witty 
things,   but   never   from  a  desire  to  be  witty.      His 
wit  was   entirely    illustrative.      He   used  it  because, 
and  only  because,  at  times  he  could  say  more  in  this 
way.   and  better   illustrate   the  idea   with   which   he 
was  pregnant.      He    never    cared    how    he    made  a 
point  so  that  he  made  it,  and  he  never  told  a  story 
for  the  mere  sake  of  telling  a  story.     When  he  did 
it,  it  was  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  and  making 
clear  a  point.     He  was  essentially  epigrammatic  and 
parabolic.      He  was  a   master  of  satire,   which  was 
at    times   as    blunt    as  a   meat-ax,   and  at  others  as 
keen    as  a    razor;   but  it   was  always  kindly  except 
when  some  horrible  injustice  was  its  inspiration,  and 
then  it  was  terrible.      Weakness  he  was  never  fero- 
cious  with,    but    intentional     wickedness    he    never 
spared. 

In  this  interview  the  name  came  up  of  a  recently 
deceased  politician  of  Illinois,  whose  undeniable 
merit  was  blemished  by  an  overweening  vanity.     His 

funeral  was  very  largely  attended  :  "  If  General 

had    known    how    big    a    funeral    he    would    have 
had,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  he  would  have  died  years 

ago."  _    , 

But  with  all  the  humor  in  his  nature,  which  was 


BY  DAVID  R.    LOCKE.  443 

more  than  humor  because  it  was  humor  with  a  pur- 
pose (that  constituting  the  difference  between  humor 
and  wit),  his  was  the  saddest  face  I  ever  looked 
upon. 

His  flow  of  humor  was  a  sparkling  spring  gushing 
out  of  a  rock — the  flashing  water  had  a  somber 
backorround  which  made  it  all  the  brighter.  When- 
ever  merriment  came  over  that  wonderful  counte- 
nance it  was  like  a  gleam  of  sunshine  upon  a  cloud — 
it  illuminated,  but  did  not  dissipate.  The  premoni- 
tion of  fate  was  on  him  then  ;  the  shadow  of  the 
tragic  closing  of  the  great  destiny  in  the  beyond  had 
already  enveloped  him. 

At  the  time,  he  said  he  should  carry  the  State  on 
the  popular  vote,  but  that  Douglas  would,  never- 
theless, be  elected  to  the  Senate,  owing  to  the  skill- 
ful manner  in  which  the  State  had  been  districted  in 
his  interest.  "You  can't  overturn  a  pyramid,  but 
you  can  undermine  it  ;  that's  what  I  have  been  try- 
inor  to  do." 

He  undermined  the  pyramid  that  the  astute 
Douglas  had  erected,  most  effectually.  It  toppled 
and  fell  very  shortly  afterward. 

The  difference  between  the  two  men  was  illus- 
trated the  next  day  in  their  opening  remarks.  Lin- 
coln said  (I  quote  from  memory)  : 

"  I  have  had  no  immediate  conference  with  Judge 
Douo^las,  but  I  am  sure  that  he  and  I  vv'ill  agree  that 


444  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

your  entire  silence  when  I  speak  and  he  speaks  will 
be  most  agreeable  to  us." 

Douglas  said  at  the  beginning  of  his  speech : 
"The  highest  compliment  you  can  pay  me  is  by  ob- 
serving a  strict  silence.  /  desire  rather  to  be  Jieard 
than  applauded." 

The  inborn  modesty  of  the  one  and  the  bound- 
less vanity  of  the  other  could  not  be  better  illus- 
trated. Lincoln  claimed  nothing  for  himself — 
Douglas  spoke  as  if  applause  must  follow  his  utter- 
ances. 

The  character  of  the  two  men  was  still  better  illus- 
trated in  their  speeches.  The  self-sufficiency  of 
Douglas  in  his  opening  might  be  pardoned,  for  he 
had  been  fed  upon  applause  till  he  fancied  him.self  a 
more  than  Caesar;  but  his  being  a  popular  idol  could 
not  justify  the  demagogy  that  saturated  the  speech 
itself.  Douglas  v/as  the  demagogue  all  the  way 
through.  There  was  no  trick  of  presentation  that 
he  did  not  use.  He  suppressed  facts,  twisted  con- 
clusions, and  perverted  history.  He  wriggled  and 
turned  and  dodged  ;  he  appealed  to  prejudices  ;  in 
short,  it  was  evident  that  what  he  was  laboring  for 
was  Douglas  and  nothing  else.  The  cause  he  pro- 
fessed was  lost  sight  of  in  the  claims  of  its  advocate. 
Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand,  kept  strictly  to  the  ques- 
tions at  issue,  and  no  one  could  doubt  but  that  the 
cause  for  which  he  was  speaking  was  the  only  thing 


BY  DAVID   R.    LOCKE.  445 

he  had  at  heart  ;  that  his  personal  interests  did  not 
weigh  a  particle.  He  was  the  representative  of  an 
idea,  and  in  the  vastness  of  the  idea  its  advocate 
was  completely  swallowed  up. 

Lincoln  admitted  frankly  all  the  weak  points  in 
the  position  of  his  party  in  the  most  open  way, 
and  that  simple  honesty  carried  conviction  with  it. 
His  admissions  of  weakness,  where  weakness  was 
visible,  strengthened  his  position  on  points  where  he 
was  strong.  He  knew  that  the  people  had  intelli- 
gence enough  to  strike  the  average  correctly.  His 
great  strength  was  in  his  trusting  the  people  instead 
of  considering  them  as  babes  in  arms.  He  did  not 
profess  to  know  everything.  The  audience  admired 
Douglas,  but  they  respected  his  simple-minded  op- 
ponent. 

Nothing  so  illustrates  the  fact  that  events  are 
stronger  than  men,  and  that  one  attackinor  an  evil 
can  never  commence  using  the  little  end  of  a  club 
without  changing  very  soon  to  the  butt,  than  the 
position  of  Lincoln  at  this  time.  The  Republican 
leaders,  and  Lincoln  as  well,  were  afraid  of  only  one 
thing,  and  that  was  of  having  imputed  to  them  any 
desire  to  abolish  slavery.  Douglas,  in  all  the  de- 
bates between  himself  and  Lincoln,  attempted  to 
fasten  Abolition  upon  him,  and  this  it  was  Lincoln's 
chief  desire  to  avoid.  Great  as  he  was,  he  had  not 
then  reached  the  point  of  declaring  war  upon  slav- 


446  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  IINCOLN 

ery  ;  he  could  go  no  farther  than  to  protest  against 
its  extension  into  the  territories,  and  that  was  pressed 
in  so  mild  and  hesitating  a  way  as  to  rob  it  of  half 
its  point.  Did  he  foresee  that  within  a  few  years 
the  irresistible  force  of  events  would  compel  him  to 
demand  its  extinction,  and  that  his  hand  would  sign 
the  document  that  killed  it?  Logic  is  mightier  than 
man's  reason.  He  did  not  realize  that  the  reason 
for  preventing  its  extension  was  the  very  best  rea- 
son for  its  extinction.  Anything  that  should  be  re- 
stricted should  be  killed.  It  took  a  war  to  bring 
about  this  conclusion.  Liberty  got  its  best  growth 
from  blood-stained  fields. 

I  met  Lincoln  again  in  1859,  i'^  Columbus,  Ohio, 
where  he  made  a  speech,  which  was  only  a  continua- 
ation  of  the  Illinois  debates  of  the  year  before. 
Douglas  had  been  previously  brought  there  by  the 
Democracy,  and  Lincoln's  speech  was,  in  the  main, 
an  answer  to  Douglas.  It  is  curious  to  note  in  this 
speech  that  Lincoln  denied  being  in  favor  of  negro 
suffrage,  and  took  pains  to  go  out  of  his  way  to 
affirm  his  support  of  the  law  of  Illinois  forbidding 
the  intermarriage  of  whites  and  negroes. 

I  asked  him  if  such  a  denial  was  worth  while,  to 
which  he  replied: 

"  The  law  means  nothing.  I  shall  never  marry  a 
negress,  but  I  have  no  objection  to  any  one  else 
doing  so.      If  a  white  man  wants  to  marry  a  negro 


BY  DAVID   R.    LOCKE.  447 

woman,  let  him  do  It — I'f  the  negro  woman  can 
sland  it.'' 

By  this  time  his  vision  had  penetrated  the  future, 
and  he  had  got  a  gHmmering  of  what  was  to  come. 
In  his  soul  he  knew  what  he  should  have  advocated, 
but  he  doubted  if  the  people  were  ready  for  the 
great  movement  of  a  few  years  later.  Hence  his 
halting  at  all  the  half-way  houses. 

"Slavery,"  said  he,  "is  doomed,  and  that  within  a 
few  years.  Even  Judge  Douglas  admits  it  to  be  an 
evil,  and  an  evil  can't  stand  discussion.  In  discuss- 
ing it  we  have  taught  a  great  many  thousands  of 
people  to  hate  it  who  had  never  given  it  a  thought 
before.  What  kills  the  skunk  is  the  publicity  it 
gives  itself.  What  a  skunk  wants  to  do  is  to  keep 
snug  under  the  barn — in  the  day-time,  when  men 
are  around  with  shot-guns." 

The  discussions  with  Douglas  made  him  the  Re- 
publican nominee  for  the  Presidency,  and  elected 
him  President. 

The  "  Nasby  Letters,"  which  I  began  in  1861, 
attracted  his  attention,  and  he  was  very  much  pleased 
with  them.  He  read  them  regularly.  He  kept  a 
pamphlet  which  contained  the  first  numbers  of  the 
series  in  a  drawer  in  his  table,  and  it  was  his  wont 
to  read  them  on  all  occasions  to  his  visitors,  no  mat- 
ter who  they  might  be,  or  what  their  business  was. 
He  seriously  offended  many  of  the  great  men  of  the 


448  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Republican  Party  in  this  way.  Grave  and  reverend 
Senators  who  came  charged  to  the  brim  with  impor- 
tant business — business  on  which  the  fate  of  the 
nation  depended — took  it  ill  that  the  President 
should  postpone  the  consideration  thereof  while  he 
read  them  a  letter  from  "  Saint's  Rest,  wich  is  in  the 
state  uv  Noo  Jersey,"  especially  as  grave  statesmen, 
as  a  rule,  do  not  understand  humor,  or  comprehend 
its  meaning  or  effect. 

Lincoln  also  seized  eagerly  upon  everything  that 
Orpheus  C.  Kerr  wrote,  and  he  knew  it  all  by  heart. 

It  was  in  1S63  that  I  received  a  letter  from  Lin- 
coln, which  illustrates  two  points  in  his  character  ; 
viz.,  his  reckless  generosity,  and  the  caution  which 
followed  close  at  its  heels. 

This  is  the  conclusion  of  the  letter: 

"Why  don't  you  come  to  Washington  and  see 
me  ?  Is  there  no  place  you  want  ?  Come  on  and  I 
will  give  you  any  place  you  ask  for — that  you  are 
capable  of  filling — and  fit  to  fill.'' 

What  led  to  this  was,  he  had  read  a  letter  of  mine 
which  pleased  him,  and  the  generosity  of  his  nature 
prompted  him  to  write  me  to  come  and  see  him,  and 
that  was  supplemented  by  an  offer  to  give  me  any 
place  I  asked  for.  After  he  had  finished  the  letter 
and  added  his  signature,  it  occurred  to  him  that  to 
promise  a  man  of  whom  he  knew  but  little,  except 
through  the  medium  of  the  press,  any  place  that  he 


BY  DAVID    R.    LOCK'S.  449 

might  ask  for,  was  rather  risky.  So  he  added  a 
dash,  and  hkewise  the  saving  clause,  "  that  yoic  are 
capable  of  filling,''  and,  to  guard  himself  entirely, 
''that  you  arc  fit  to  fill!' 

I  did  go  and  see  him,  but  not  to  ask  for  a  place. 
He  gave  me  an  hour  of  his  time,  and  a  delightful  hour 
it  was.  The  end  of  the  terrible  struggle  was  within 
sight,  the  country  he  loved  so  well  had  passed 
through  the  throes  of  internecine  strife  and  demon- 
strated its  right  to  live,  and  the  great  and  good  man 
was  on  the  eve  of  passing  from  labor  to  reward. 
It  was  a  fact  that  treason  was  more  rampant  at  the 
North  than  ever ;  that  great  dangers  were  still 
threatening ;  but  the  army  was  actually  an  army,  and 
the  loyal  sentiment  of  the  North  had  shown  that  it 
could  be  depended  upon.  He  bubbled  over  with 
good  feeling ;  he  expressed  a  liking  for  my  little 
work,  which  I  have  not  the  assurance  to  put  upon 
paper,  and  I  departed. 

I  was  in  Washington  once  more  in  1864,  when 
the  great  struggle  was  nearer  its  close.  My  busi- 
ness was  to  secure  a  pardon  for  a  young  man  from 
Ohio,  who  had  deserted  under  rather  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances. When  he  enlisted  he  was  under  en- 
gagement to  a  young  girl,  and  went  to  the  front  very 
certain  of  her  faithfulness,  as  a  young  man  should 
be,   and  he    made  a  most   excellent    soldier,   feeling 

that  the  inevitable  "she"  at  home  would  be  proud 

29 


450 


REMINISCENCES   OE  A  BE  A  HAM   LINCOLN 


of  him.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  young  girl, 
being  exceptionally  pretty,  had  another  lover,  whom 
she  had  rejected  for  the  young  volunteer,  and  also, 
it  is  needless  to  add,  that  the  stay-at-home  rejected 
hated  the  accepted  soldier  with  the  utmost  cordial- 
ity. Taking  advantage  of  the  absence  of  the  fa- 
vored lover,  the  discarded  one  renewed  his  suit 
with  great  vehemence,  and  rumors  reached  the 
young  man  at  the  front  that  his  love  had  gone  over 
to  his  enemy,  and  that  he  was  in  danger  of  losing 
her  entirely.  He  immediately  applied  for  a  fur- 
lough, which  was  refused  him,  and  half  mad  and 
reckless  of  consequences,  deserted.  He  found  the 
information  he  had  received  to  be  partially  true, 
but  he  came  in  time.  He  married  the  girl,  but  was 
immediately  arrested  as  a  deserter,  tried,  found 
guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be  shot.  I  stated  the  cir- 
cumstances, giving  the  young  fellow  a  good  char- 
acter, and  the  President  at  once  signed  a  pardon. 

"  I  want  to  punish  the  young  man — probably  in 
less  than  a  year  he  will  wish  I  had  withheld  the 
pardon.  We  can't  tell,  though.  I  suppose  when  I 
was  a  young  man  I  should  have  done  the  same  fool 
thing." 

No  man  on  earth  hated  blood  as  Lincoln  did,  and 
he  seized  eagerly  upon  any  excuse  to  pardon  a  man 
when  the  charge  could  possibly  justify  it.  The 
generals    always  wanted    an    execution   carried   out 


BY  DAVID   R.    LOCKE.  45  I 

before  it  could  possibly  be  brought  before  the  Presi- 
dent. 

He  was  as  tender-hearted  as  a  girl.  He  asked 
me  if  the  masses  of  the  people  of  Ohio  held  him,  in 
any  way,  personally  responsible  for  the  loss  of  their 
friends  in  the  army.  "  It's  a  good  thing  for  indi- 
viduals," he  said,  "  that  there's  a  government  to 
shove  over  their  acts  upon.  No  man's  shoulders 
are  broad  enough  to  bear  what  must  be." 

The  strifes  and  jars  in  the  Republican  Party  at 
this  time  disturbed  him  more  than  anything  else,  but 
he  avoided  taking  sides  with  any  of  the  faction, 
with  the  dexterity  that  comes  of  simple  honesty, 
which  always  finds  the  right  road  because  it  is  look- 
ing for  nothing  else.  I  asked  him  why  he  did  not 
take  some  pronounced  position  in  one  trying  en- 
counter between  two  very  prominent  Republicans. 

"  I  learned,"  said  he,  "  a  great  many  years  ago, 
that  in  a  fight  between  man  and  wife,  a  third  party 
should  never  get  between  the  woman's  skillet  and 
the  man's  ax-helve." 

The  name  of  a  most  virulent  and  dishonest  official 
was  mentioned,  one  who,  though  very  brilliant,  was 
very  bad. 

"It's  a  big  thing  for  B ,"  said  Lincoln,  "that 

there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  death-bed  repentance." 

The  favorite  poem  of  the  President  was,  as  is  well 
known,    "  Oh,  why   should   the   spirit   of   mortal   be 


452  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

proud?"  A  member  of  Congress  from  Ohio  came 
into  his  presence  in  a  state  of  unutterable  intoxica- 
tion, and  sinking-  into  a  chair,  exclaimed  in  tones 
that  welled  up  fuzzy  through  the  gallon  or  more  of 
whisky  that  he  contained,  "  Oh,  why  should  (hie) 
er  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ?" 

"  My  dear  sir,"  said  the  President,  regarding  him 
closely,  "  I  see  no  reason  whatever." 

A  prominent  Senator  was  charged  with  an  at- 
tempt to  swindle  the  government  out  of  some 
millions.  The  President  said  he  could  not  under- 
stand why  men  should  be  so  eager  after  wealth. 
"  Wealth,"  said  he,  "  is  simply  a  superfluity  of  what 
we  don't  need." 

A  few  months  after,  the  rebellion  collapsed,  the 
country  rejoiced  in  the  peace  that  had  been  so  long 
hoped  for  but  so  long  delayed,  and  Abraham  Lin- 
coln was  the  world's  hero.  A  few  days  later  the 
bullet  of  a  madman  ended  his  career,  and  a  world 
mourned, 

I  saw  him,  or  what  was  mortal  of  him,  on  the 
mournful  progress  to  his  last  resting-place,  in  his 
coffin.  The  face  was  the  same  as  in  life.  Death 
had  not  changed  the  kindly  countenance  in  any  line. 
There  was  upon  it  the  same  sad  look  that  it  had 
worn  always,  though  not  so  intensely  sad  as  it 
had  been  in  life.  It  was  as  if  the  spirit  had  come 
back    to    the    poor    clay,   reshaped    the  wonderfully 


BV  DAl'/D  R.    LOCKE.  453 

sweet  face,  and  given  it  an  expression  of  gladness 
that  he  had  finally  gone  "where  the  wicked  cease 
from  troubling,  and  the  weary  are  at  rest."  The 
face  had  an  expression  of  absolute  content,  of  relief, 
at  throwing  off  a  burden  such  as  few  men  have  been 
called  upon  to  bear — a  burden  which  few  men  could 
have  borne.  I  had  seen  the  same  expression  on  his 
living  face  only  a  few  times,  when,  after  a  great 
calamity,  he  had  come  to  a  great  victory.  It  was  the 
look  of  a  worn  man  suddenly  relieved. 

Wilkes  Booth  did  Abraham  Lincoln  the  greatest 
service  man  could  possibly  do  for  him — he  gave 
him  peace. 

DAVID    R.   LOCKE. 


XXVI. 

Leonard  Swett. 

MR.    LINCOLN'S    STORY    OF    HIS    OWN    LIFE. 

IN  the  autumn  of  1849,  ^  '^^^  sitting  with  Judge 
David  Davis  in  a  small  country  hotel  in  Mt. 
Pulaski,  Illinois,  when  a  tall  man,  with  a  circular 
blue  cloak  thrown  over  his  shoulders,  entered  one 
door  of  the  room,  and  passing  through  without 
speaking,  went  out  another.  I  was  struck  by  his 
appearance.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  seen 
him,  and  I  said  to  Judge  Davis,  when  he  had  gone, 
"Who  is  that?"  "Why,  don't  you  know  him? 
That  is  Lincoln."  In  a  few  moments  he  returned, 
and,  for  the  first  time,  I  shook  the  hand  and  made 
the  acquaintance  of  that  man  who  since  then  has 
so  wonderfully  impressed  himself  upon  the  hearts 
and  affections  of  mankind. 

The  State  of  Illinois  contained  at  that  time  in 
round  numbers  about  500,000  souls,  and  Chicago 
about  28,000  instead  of  700,000  as  now.  The  county 
seats  of  the  State,  now  containing  5,000  and  20,000 
as  a  general  rule,  then  contained  500  to  1,000,  with 
a  log  court  house  and  a  log  jail.     The  settlements  in 


456  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  country  skirted  along  the  timber,  the  streams 
were  without  bridges,  and  the  prairies  were  wholly 
unsettled.  Dim  roads  or  trails  extended  from  one 
county  seat  to  another,  and  the  ordinary  mode  of 
travel  was  on  horseback  or,  occasionally,  in  a  buggy. 

We  were  then  attending  the  circuit  court,  which 
circuit  embraced  fourteen  counties.  These  courts 
commenced  about  the  first  of  September  and  closed 
about  Christmas,  and  commenced  again  about  Feb- 
ruary and  closed  about  June.  The  time  allotted  for 
holding  court  was  from  two  to  three  days  to  a  week 
at  a  place.*  Mr.  Lincoln  had,  just  before  that  time, 
closed  his  only  term  in  Congress,  and  had,  when  I 
met  him,  returned  to  his  former  life  as  a  lawyer 
upon  this,  the  Eighth  Judicial  Circuit.  For  eleven 
years  thereafter  we  traversed  this  circuit  together, 
the  size  of  the  circuit  being  diminished  by  the  Leg- 
islature as  the  country  increased  in  settlement  ; 
staying  at  the  same  little  country  hotel,  riding  and 
driving  together  over  the  country,  and  trying  suits 
together,  or,  more  frequently,  opposed  to  each  other. 

In  the  fall  of  1853,  as  I  was  riding  with  him  in  a 
buggy  from  De  Witt  County  to  Champaign,  a  dis- 
tance of  about  fifty  miles,  upon  the  business  of  at- 
tending this  court,  and  as  we  were  traversing  a 
prairie  some  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  in  width,  and 
nearing  Champaign,  I  said  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  I  have 
heard  a  great  many  curious  incidents  of  your  early 

*  See  Note,  p.  468. 


BY  LEONARD   SWETT.  457 

life,  and  I  would  be  obliged  if  you  would  begin  at 
your  earliest  recollection  and  tell  me  the  story  of  it 
continuously."  The  season  and  the  surroundings 
seemed  adapted  to  lazy  story  telling.  The  weather 
was  the  perfection  of  Indian  summer  time,  and 
the  tall  grasses  covered  the  prairie  everywhere  like 
ripened  grain.  Occasionally,  a  distant  prairie  fire 
filled  the  air  with  hazy  smoke,  the  quail  whistled  to 
his  mate,  and,  at  times,  the  red  deer  started  from  the 
tall  grasses  of  the  dell  as  we  passed  along.  I  give 
this  story  as  nearly  as  I  can  in  the  substance  of  his 
own  lano-uaore  : 

"  I  can  remember,"  he  said,  "our  life  in  Kentucky; 
the  cabin,  the  stinted  living,  the  sale  of  our  posses- 
sions, and  the  journey  with  my  father  and  mother 
to  Southern  Indiana," 

I  think  he  said  he  was  then  about  six  years  old. 
Shortly  after  his  arrival  in  Indiana  his  mother  died. 

"  It  was  pretty  pinching  times,"  he  said,  "  at  first 
in  Indiana,  getting  the  cabin  built,  and  the  clearing 
for  the  crops  ;  but  presently  we  got  reasonably  com- 
fortable, and  my  father  married  again." 

He  had  very  faint  recollections  of  his  own  mother, 
he  was  so  young  when  she  died,  but  he  spoke  most 
kindly  of  her  and  of  his  step-mother,  and  of  her  care 
for  him  in  providing  for  his  wants. 

He  told  me  of  earning  his  first  half  dollar.  Stand- 
ing upon  the  shore  of  a  river  a  steamboat  was  passing 


458  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

along  in  the  middle  of  the  stream.  Some  one  on 
board  the  boat  called  to  him  to  come  with  a  small 
boat.  He  went,  took  off  a  passenger,  and  was  paid 
the  half  dollar.  Afterwards,  playing  upon  a  flat- 
boat  which  was  fastened  so  as  to  reach  out  into  the 
stream,  he  dropped  his  half  dollar  from  the  farthest 
end  of  the  boat. 

Said  he,  "  I  can  see  the  quivering  and  shining  of 
that  half  dollar  yet,  as  in  the  quick  current  it  went 
down  the  stream  and  sunk  from  my  sight  forever." 

"  My  father,"  he  said,  "  had  suffered  greatly  for 
the  want  of  an  education,  and  he  determined  at  an 
early  day  that  I  should  be  well  educated.  And  what 
do  you  think  he  said  his  ideas  of  a  good  education 
were  ?  We  had  an  old  dog-eared  arithmetic  in  our 
house,  and  father  determined  that  somehow,  or  some- 
how else,  I  should  cipher  clear  through  that  book." 

With  this  standard  of  an  education,  he  started  to 
a  school  in  a  log-house  in  the  neighborhood,  and 
begfan  his  educational  career.  He  had  attended  this 
school  but  about  six  weeks,  however,  when  a  calam- 
ity befell  the  father.  He  had  endorsed  some  man's 
note  in  the  neighborhood,  for  a  considerable  amount, 
and  the  prospect  was  he  would  have  it  to  pay,  and 
that  would  sweep  away  all  their  little  possessions. 
His  father,  therefore,  explained  to  him  that  he  wanted 
to  hire  him  out  and  receive  the  fruits  of  his  labor, 
and  his  aid  in  averting  this  calamity.     Accordingly, 


EARLY    HOME   OF   LINCOLN,    IN    ILLINOIS. 


RV  LEONARD   SIVETT.  459 

at  the  expiration  of  six  weeks,  he  left  school,  and 
never  returned  to  it  again.  These  six  weeks,  there- 
fore, constitute  the  entire  sum  of  his  education  in 
school.  From  this  time  until  he  was  about  nineteen, 
he  lived  in  Southern  Indiana.  He  was  a  strong, 
athletic  boy,  good-natured,  and  ready  to  out-run, 
out-jump  and  out-wrestle  or  out-lift  anybody  in  the 
neighborhood.  There  were  in  that  vicinity  a  few 
books  which  he  literally  devoured — the  Bible,  S/iakcs- 
pcare,  Bunyan's  Pilgrinis  Progress,  Weems'  Life  of 
Washington,  Weems'  Life  of  Marion,  etc.  He  said 
to  me  that  he  had  got  hold  of  and  read  through 
every  book  he  ever  heard  of  in  that  country  for  a 
circuit  of  about  fifty  miles. 

At  the  age  of  nineteen  his  father  sold  out  his 
possessions  in  Indiana,  and  loaded  all  their  mova- 
ble goods  upon  a  wagon,  and  Lincoln  drove  the 
oxen  that  hauled  them  upon  this  new  migration  west- 
ward. They  arrived  in  Coles  County,  Illinois,  about 
the  month  of  August,  and  that  fall  built  a  cabin  for 
the  coming  winter  and  broke  land  for  a  crop  the 
next  year.  Lincoln's  father  gave  him  his  time  in 
the  autumn  of  the  next  year,  he  coming  of  age  the 
following  February.  It  was  a  few  months  before  he 
would  be  entitled  to  it  by  operation  of  law,  and  he 
started  off  into  the  world  to  seek  his  fortune.  His 
step-mother  tied  up  all  his  earthly  possessions  in  a 
bundle,  and  Lincoln,  running  a  stick  through  it  where 


460  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

the  knot  was  tied,  threw  it  over  his  shoulder,  and 
started,  with  his  father's  and  mother's  blessing,  upon 
a  wonderful  journey  of  life. 

It  commenced  along  an  old  Indian  trail  from 
Coles  to  Macon  County.  See  him,  as  he  goes  on 
foot  through  the  grasses  of  the  prairie — a  tall,  lithe, 
young  man,  a  stick  and  a  pack  upon  his  back,  start- 
ing out  on  that  unknown  journey  which  took  him, 
first  to  be  a  rail-splitter,  then  to  the  captaincy  of  a 
flat-boat,  then  to  the  life  of  a  little  merchant,  then  to 
a  captaincy  in  the  Black  Hawk  War,  to  the  county 
surveyorship  of  Sangamon  County,  to  a  membership 
in  the  legislature  of  the  State,  to  the  electorship  at 
large  for  the  State,  to  the  championship  of  oratory 
for  Henry  Clay  in  1844,  to  a  membership  in  Con- 
gress, in  1846  to  1848,  to  a  conceded  position  of 
leadership  as  a  member  of  the  bar  in  the  State  of 
Illinois,  and,  lastly,  to  the  presidency  and  to  martyr- 
dom in  the  country  upon  which  he  was  then  so 
humbly  walking. 

Arriving  at  Macon  County  he  found  some  cousins 
by  the  name  of  Hanks,  and  in  connection  with  one 
of  these  young  men,  that  winter  took  the  job  of 
splitting  rails,  at  a  fixed  price  per  hundred.  He 
worked  about  in  this  manner,  for  a  year  or  more, 
when  he  drifted  over  the  line  of  Macon  into  Sanga- 
mon County,  and  worked  for  some  prominent  farmer, 
whose  name  I  have  forgotten. 


^  R  V  LEON.  I RD  SIVE  T T.  4  6  I 

It  was  an  easy  task  in  those  days,  in  Illinois,  to 
raise  products,  but  corn  was  worth  only  ten  cents 
a  bushel,  and  was  sometimes  used  for  fuel.  If  the 
products  could  only  be  marketed,  liberal  profits 
would  arise.  Hence  Lincoln,  while  working  there, 
conceived  the  idea  of  building  a  flat-boat  upon  the 
Sangamon  River,  running  it  down  the  Sangamon 
into  the  Illinois,  down  the  Illinois  to  the  Mississippi, 
and  thence  to  New  Orleans.  This  had  never  been 
done,  and  the  apparent  obstacle  was  a  dam  across 
the  Sangamon  River  near  Springfield.  Lincoln  had 
some  device  by  which  he  thought  this  obstacle  could 
be  overcome. 

The  enterprise  being  agreed  upon,  Mr.  Lincoln 
felled,  in  the  forest,  the  timber,  and  hewed  the  beams, 
built  the  boat,  loaded  it  with  provisions,  and  was  then 
elected  to  his  first  office,  which  was  the  captaincy  of 
that  flat-boat.  The  crew  consisted  of  Lincoln,  himself 
the  Captain,  and  one  or  two  other  men.  The  dam 
was  successfully  passed  at  high  water  by  some  device 
I  have  forgotten,  and  Lincoln  passed  down  the 
Illinois  and  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans,  sold 
his  cargo  there,  and  worked  his  passage  back  by 
assisting  in  firing  on  a  steamboat.  Since  his  assas- 
sination I  have  seen  and  conversed  with  one  of  the 
captains  of  a  boat  upon  which  he  thus  worked  his 
passage  coming  back. 

On  the  occasion  of  one  of  these  passages,  in  the 


4.62  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

vicinity  of  Natchez,  a  negro  came  very  near  smash- 
in^T  the  head  of  the  future  emancipator  of  his  race. 
1'he  boat  one  night  was  tied  up  to  the  shore  and 
the  crew  asleep  below.  A  noise  being  heard  Cap- 
tain Lincoln  came  up,  and  just  as  his  head  emerged 
through  the  hatchway,  a  negro,  who  was  pilfering, 
struck  him  a  blow  with  a  heavy  stick,  but  the  point 
of  the  stick  reached  over  his  head,  and  struck  the 
floor  beyond,  at  the  same  time,  thus  lightening  the 
blow  on  his  head,  but  making  a  scar  which  he  wore 
always,  and  which  he  showed  me  at  the  time  of 
telling  this  story. 

After  his  experience  in  flat-boating,  which  lasted 
two  or  three  years,  Lincoln  resided  for  awhile  in  the 
town  of  New  Salem,  in  Sangamon  County.  Here 
he  was  employed  as  a  clerk  in  a  store,  and  after- 
ward became  a  partner.  I  remember  well  his  ex- 
pression in  describing  that  little  store,  which  con- 
tained a  very  few  goods  of  various  kinds.  Tui-ning 
to  me  he  said,  "  I  reckon  that  was  the  store-keep- 
ino-."  A  difference,  however,  soon  arose  between 
him  and  the  old  proprietor,  the  present  partner  of 
Lincoln,  in  reference  to  the  introduction  of  whiskey 
into  the  establishment.  The  partner  insisted  that, 
on  the  principle  that  honey  catches  flies,  a  barrel  of 
whiskey  in  the  store  would  invite  custom,  and  their 
sales  would  increase,  while  Lincoln,  who  never  liked 
liquor,  opposed   this   innovation.      He   told  me,  not 


BV  LEONARD    SWETT. 


463 


more  than  a  year  before  he  was  elected  President, 
that  he  had  never  tasted  liquor  in  his  life.  "  What ! " 
I  said,  "do  you  mean  to  say  you  never  tasted  it?" 
"  Yes,  I  never  tasted  it."  The  result  was  that  a  bar- 
gain was  made  by  which  Lincoln  should  retire  from 
his  partnership  in  the  store.  He  was  to  step  out  as 
he  stepped  in.  He  had  nothing  when  he  stepped  in, 
and  he  had  nothing  when  he  stepped  out.  But  the 
partner  took  all  the  goods,  and  agreed  to  pay  all  the 
debts,  for  a  part  of  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  become 
jointly  liable. 

About  this  time,  the  Black  Hawk  War  broke  out. 
Black  Hawk,  an  Indian  chief  near  Rock  Island,  had 
committed  some  depredations  upon  the  whites,  and 
the  inhabitants  of  the  State  becoming  exasperated, 
formed  companies  and  joined  the  nucleus  of  officers 
and  soldiers  of  the  regular  army,  and  marched 
together  to  Rock  Island,  and  then  marched  back 
again.  This  was  about  all  there  was  to  the  war.  A 
company  was  raised  and  organized  at  New  Salem. 

During  Lincoln's  youth  he  had  everywhere  been 
distinguished  as  the  crowning  athlete  of  the  neigh- 
borhood in  which  he  lived.  Everywhere  along  the 
frontier,  since  that  frontier  has  marched  from  the 
east  westward,  some  fellow  in  every  neighborhood 
had  been  "  cock  of  the  walk,"  who  could  out-wrestle, 
out-run,  and  out-jump  everybody.  Lincoln  was  that 
person  wherever  he  lived  in  early  life.      He  was  that 


464 


REMINISCENCES   OE  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


boy  when  young  in  Indiana,  and  afterward  in  New 
Salem  he  made  a  hero  of  himself  by  wrestling, 
running,  jumping,  lifting,  and  other  innocent  amuse- 
ments of  that  character.  He  was  six  feet  three  and 
a-half  inches  tall,  long-armed,  long-limbed,  brawny- 
handed,  with  no  superfluous  flesh,  toughened  by 
labor  in  the  open  air,  of  perfect  health,  and  his  grip 
was  like  the  grip  of  Hercules. 

Together  with  the  talk  of  organizing  a  company 
in  New  Salem,  began  the  talk  of  making  Lincoln 
captain  of  it.  His  characteristics  as  an  athlete  had 
made  something  of  a  hero  of  him.  Turning  to  me 
with  a  smile  at  the  time,  he  said,  "  I  cannot  tell 
you  how  much  the  idea  of  being  the  captain  of  that 
company  pleased  me." 

But  when  the  day  of  organization  arrived,  a  man 
who  had  been  captain  of  a  real  company  arrived 
in  his  uniform,  and  assumed  the  organization  of  the 
company.  The  mode  of  it  was  as  follows  :  A  line  of 
two  was  formed  by  the  company,  with  the  parties 
who  intended  to  be  candidates  for  officers  standing 
in  front.  The  candidate  for  captain  then  made  a 
speech  to  the  men,  telling  them  what  a  gallant  man 
he  was,  in  what  wars  he  had  fought,  bled  and  died, 
and  how  he  was  ready  again,  for  the  glory  of  his 
country,  to  lead  them.  Then  another  candidate ; 
and  when  the  speech-making  was  ended,  they  com- 
manded those  who  would  vote  for  this  man,  or  that, 


BY  LEONARD    SIVETT.  465 

to  form  a  line  behind  their  favorite.  Thus  there 
were  one,  two  or  three  Hnes  behind  the  different 
men,  as  there  were  different  candidates,  and  then 
they  counted  back,  and  the  fellow  who  had  the 
longest  tail  to  his  kite,  was  the  real  captain.  It  was 
a  good  way.  There  was  no  chance  for  ballot-box 
stuffing  or  a  false  count. 

When  the  real  captain  with  his  regimentals  came 
and  assumed  the  control,  Lincoln's  heart  failed  him. 
He  formed  in  the  line  with  the  boys,  and  after  the 
speech  was  made  they  began  to  form  behind  the 
old  captain,  but  the  boys  seized  Lincoln,  and  pushed 
him  out  of  the  line,  and  began  to  form  behind  him, 
and  cried  form  behind  "  Abe,"  and  in  a  moment  of 
irresolution  he  marched  ahead,  and  when  they 
counted  back  he  had  two  more  than  the  other  cap- 
tain, and  he  became  real  captain. 

Whatever  was  to  be  done  in  this  war,  Lincoln 
did  well,  as  we  may  infer  from  the  facts  which 
succeeded  his  return.  As  he  returned  home,  he 
found  his  old  partner  had  been  his  own  best  cus- 
tomer at  that  whiskey  barrel,  and  that  all  the  goods 
were  gone,  but  having  failed  to  pay  the  debts,  there 
were  eleven  hundred  dollars  for  which  Lincoln  was 
jointly  liable.  I  cannot  forget  his  face  of  serious- 
ness as  he  turned  to  me  and  said,  "  That  debt  was 
the  greatest  obstacle  I  have  ever  met  in  life  ;  I  had 

no  way  of  speculating,   and  could  not  earn   money 
30 


466  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

except  by  labor,  and  to  earn  by  labor  eleven  hundred 
dollars,  besides  my  living,  seemed  the  work  of  a 
lifetime.  There  was,  however,  but  one  way.  I  went 
to  the  creditors  and  told  them  that  if  they  would 
let  me  alone,  I  would  give  them  all  I  could  earn, 
over  my  living,  as  fast  as  I   could  earn  it." 

Providence  is  often  kinder  than  our  fears.  About 
this  time  events  of  this  character  occurred  in  Lin- 
coln's life.  He  had  previously  borrowed  some  books 
and  learned  something  of  surveying,  and  upon  his 
return  from  the  war,  was  employed  in  the  County 
Surveyor's  office  of  the  County  of  Sangamon,  and 
for  four  years  thereafter  was  elected  member  of  the 
State  legislature. 

"  At  that  time,"  said  he,  "  members  of  the  legis- 
lature got  four  dollars  a  day,  and  four  dollars  a 
day  was  more  than  I  had  ever  earned  in  my  life." 

With  an  economical  mode  of  life  which  he  knew 
so  well,  he  succeeded,  with  what  he  saved  in  winter, 
at  the  legislature,  and  what  he  earned  in  the  sum- 
mer  as  surveyor,  in  paying  what  he  called  "  the 
national  debt." 

The  life,  in  the  legislature,  with  politicians  de- 
veloped the  natural  gift  he  had  for  public  speak- 
ing, and  that  legislature,  in  which  he  was  celebrated, 
is  to-day  remembered  in  Illinois  as  the  legislature 
of  the  "  lone  nine,"  of  which  Lincoln  was  one, 
each    of    the    nine    being    more   than   six    feet    tall. 


BY  LEONARD   SIVETT.  467 

Although  deficient  in  education  acquired  at  school, 
life  was  to  him  a  school,  and  he  was  always  study- 
ing and  mastering  every  subject  which  came  be- 
fore him.  He  knew  how  to  dig  out  any  question 
from  its  very  roots,  and  when  his  own  children 
b'-o-an  to  eo  to  school,  he  studied  with  them,  and 
acquired  in  mature  life  the  elements  of  an  educa- 
tion. I  have  seen  him  myself,  upon  the  circuit, 
with  "  a  geometry,"  or  "an  astronomy,"  or  some 
book  of  that  kind,  working  out  propositions  in 
moments  of  leisure,  or  acquiring  the  information 
that  is  generally  acquired  in  boyhood.  He  is  the 
only  man  I  have  ever  known  to  bridge  back  thor- 
oughly in  the  matter  of  spelling.  There  are  but 
very  few  college  graduates  who  spell  as  well  as  Mr. 
Lincoln  spelled. 

At  the  close  of  his  term  in  the  legislature  he  was 
persuaded  to  move  to  Springfield  and  study  law. 
John  T.  Stuart,  a  most  eminent  lawyer  in  the  State, 
loaned  him  books,  and  William  Butler,  still  remem- 
bered as  State  Treasurer  of  the  State,  loaned  him 
money  and  board,  and  he  immediately  commenced 
studying  and  practicing  law.  He  rose  in  his  profession 
with  great  rapidity,  and  soon  became  distinguished, 
as  a  leader  in  it.  He  was  also  a  leader  of  the  Whig 
party  in  the  State,  and  canvassed  it  in  1840.  Again, 
with  distinguished  ability,  he  was  the  champion  of 
Henry  Clay  in    1844,  was   elevated   to  Congress   in 


468  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

1846,  and  in  1848,  having  made  a  canvass  for  Presi- 
dent Taylor,  returned  upon  the  circuit,  to  the  prac- 
tice of  the  law,  where  I  first  met  him,  as  described. 

Mr.  Lincoln  told  this  story  as  the  story  of  a  happy 
childhood.  There  was  nothing  sad  nor  pinched,  and 
nothing  of  want,  and  no  allusions  to  want,  in  any  part 
of  it.  His  own  description  of  his  youth  was  that  of 
a  joyous,  happy  boyhood.  It  was  told  with  mirth 
and  glee,  and  illustrated  by  pointed  anecdote,  often 
interrupted  by  his  jocund  laugh  which  echoed  over 
the  prairies.  His  biographers  have  given  to  his 
early  life  the  spirit  of  suffering  and  want,  and  as 
one  reads  them,  he  feels  like  tossing  him  pennies 
for  his  relief.  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  no  such  description, 
nor  is  such  description  true.  His  was  just  such  life 
as  has  always  existed  and  now  exists  in  the  frontier 
States,  and  such  boys  are  not  suffering,  but  are 
rather  like  Whittier's  "Barefoot  boy  with  cheeks 
of  tan,"  and  I  doubt  not  Mr.  Lincoln  in  after-life 
would  gladly  have  exchanged  the  pleasures  of  grati- 
fied ambition  and  of  power  for  those  hours  of 
happy  contentment  and  rest. 

LEONARD  SWETT. 

Note. — The  courts  referred  to,  on  page  456,  were  presided  over  by  David 
Davis,  who  was  the  judge  from  1S49  until  1S62,  when  he  left  the  bench  for 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  Stales,  to  which  post  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
appointment.  Ward  W.  Lamar  was  the  prosecuting  attorney  for  the  last 
five  or  six  years,  and  also  travelled  the  circuit. 


^2-z-^ 


XXVII. 

Walt  Whitman. 

GLAD  am  I  to  give  even  the  most  brief  and 
shorn  testimony  in  memory  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. Everything  I  heard  about  him  authentically, 
and  every  time  I  saw  him  (and  it  was  m.y  fortune 
through  1862  to  '65  to  see,  or  pass  a  word  with,  or 
watch  him,  personally,  perhaps  twenty  or  thirty 
times'^),  added  to  and  annealed  my  respect  and  love 

"  From  my  Note-book  in  1S64,  at  Washington  City,  I  find  this  memorandum, 
under  date  of  August  12  : 

I  see  the  President  almost  every  day,  as  I  happen  to  live  where  he  passes  to 
or  from  his  lodgings  out  of  town.  He  never  sleeps  at  the  White  House  during 
the  hot  season,  but  has  quarters  at  a  healthy  location,  some  three  miles  north  of 
the  city,  the  Soldiers'  Home,  a  United  States  military  establishment.  I  saw 
him  this  morning  about  8.30  coming  in  to  business,  riding  on  Vermont  Avenue, 
near  L  Street.  He  always  has  a  company  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  cavalry,  with 
sabres  drawn,  and  held  upright  over  their  shoulders.  The  party  makes  no  great 
show  in  uniforms  or  horses.  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  saddle,  generally  rides  a 
o-ood-sized,  easy-going  gray  horse,  is  dress'd  in  plain  black,  somewhat  rusty 
and  dusty  ;  wears  a  black  stiff  hat,  and  looks  about  as  ordinary  in  attire,  &c.,  as 
the  commonest  man.  A  lieutenant,  with  yellow  straps,  rides  at  his  left,  and 
following  behmd,  two  by  two,  come  the  cavalry  men  in  their  yellow-striped 
jackets.  They  are  generally  going  at  a  slow  trot,  as  that  is  the  pace  set  them 
by  the  One  they  wait  upon.  The  sabres  and  accoutrements  clank,  and  the  en- 
tirely unornamental  co>'h'ge  as  it  trots  toward  Lafayette  Square  arouses  no  sen- 
sation, only  some  curious  stranger  stops  and  gazes.     I  see  very  plainly  Abraham 


470 


REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


at  the  passing  moment.  And  as  I  dwell  on  what 
I  myself  heard  or  saw  of  the  mighty  Westerner,  and 
blend  it  with  the  history  and  literature  of  my  age, 
and  of  what  I  can  get  of  all  ages,  and  conclude 
it  with  his  death,  it  seems  like  some  tragic  play, 
superior  to  all  else  I  know — vaster  and  fierier  and 
more  convulsionary,  for  this  America  of  ours,  than 
Eschylus  or  Shakspeare  ever  drew  for  Athens  or  for 
England.  And  then  the  Moral  permeating,  under- 
lying all  !  the  Lesson  that  none  so  remote,  none  so 
illiterate — no  age,  no  class — but  may  directly  or  in- 
directly read  ! 

Lincoln's  dark  brown  face,  with  the  deep  cut  lines,  the  eyes,  &c. ,  always  to  me 
with  a  latent  sadness  in  the  expression.  We  have  got  so  that  we  always  ex- 
change bows,  and  very  cordial  ones. 

Sometimes  the  President  goes  and  comes  in  an  open  barouche.  The  cavalry 
always  accompany  him,  with  drawn  sabres.  Often  I  notice  as  he  goes  out 
evenings— and  sometimes  in  the  morning,  when  he  returns  early — he  turns  off 
and  halts  at  the  large  and  handsome  residence  of  the  Secretary  of  War  on  K 
Street,  and  holds  conference  there.  If  in  his  barouche,  I  can  see  from  my  win- 
dow he  does  not  alight,  but  sits  in  the  vehicle,  and  Mr.  Stanton  comes  out  to 
attend  him.  Sometimes  one  of  his  sons,  a  boy  of  ten  or  twelve,  accompanies 
him,  riding  at  his  right  on  a  pony. 

Earlier  in  the  summer  I  occasionally  saw  the  President  and  his  wife,  toward 
the  latter  part  of  the  afternoon,  out  in  a  barouche,  on  a  pleasure  ride  through 
the  city.  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  dressed  in  complete  black,  with  a  long  crape  veil. 
The  equipage  is  of  the  plainest  kind,  only  two  horses,  and  they  nothing  extra. 
They  pass'd  me  once  very  close,  and  I  saw  the  President  in  the  face  fully,  as 
they  were  moving  slow,  and  his  look,  though  abstracted,  happen'd  to  be  di- 
rected steadily  in  my  eye.  He  bow'd  and  smiled,  but  far  beneath  his  smile  I 
noticed  well  the  expression  I  have  alluded  to.  None  of  the  artists  or  pictures 
have  caught  the  subtle  and  indirect  expression  of  this  man's  face.  One  of  the 
great  portrait  painters  of  two  or  three  centuries  ago  is  needed. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 


BY    WALT    WHITMAN.  47 1 

Abraham  Lincoln's  was  really  one  of  those  char- 
acters, the  best  of  which  is  the  result  of  long  trains 
of  cause  and  effect — needing  a  certain  spaciousness 
of  time,  and  perhaps  even  remoteness,  to  properly 
enclose  them — having  unequaled  influence  on  the 
shaping  of  this  Republic  (and  therefore  the  world) 
as  to-day,  and  then  far  more  important  in  the  future. 
Thus  the  time  has  by  no  means  yet  come  for  a  thor- 
ough measurement  of  him.  Nevertheless,  we  who  live 
in  his  era — who  have  seen  him,  and  heard  him,  face 
to  face,  and  are  in  the  midst  of,  or  just  parting  from, 
the  stronor  and  strange  events  which  he  and  we  have 
had  to  do  with,  can  in  some  respects  bear  valuable, 
perhaps  indispensable  testimony  concerning  him. 

I  should  first  like  to  give  what  I  call  a  very  fair 
and  characteristic  likeness  of  Lincoln,  as  I  saw  him 
and  watched  him  one  afternoon  in  Washington,  for 
nearly  half  an  hour,  not  long  before  his  death.  It 
was  as  he  stood  on  the  balcony  of  the  National 
Hotel,  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  making  a  short  speech 
to  the  crowd  in  front,  on  the  occasion  either  of  a  set 
of  new  colors  presented  to  a  famous  Illinois  regiment, 
or  of  the  daring  capture,  by  the  Western  men,  of 
some  flags  from  "the  enemy,"  (which  latter  phrase, 
by  the  by,  was  not  used  by  him  at  all  in  his  remarks.) 
How  the  picture  happened  to  be  made  I  do  not 
know,  but  I  bought  it  a  few  days  afterward  in 
Washington,    and    it   was    endorsed    by    every  one 


472  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  whom  I  showed  it.  Though  hundreds  of  por- 
traits have  been  made,  by  painters  and  photogra- 
phers (many  to  pass  on,  by  copies,  to  future  times), 
I  have  never  seen  one  yet  that  in  my  opinion  de- 
served to  be  called  a  perfectly  good  likeness  ;  nor  do 
I  believe  there  is  really  such  a  one  in  existence. 
May  I  not  say  too,  that,  as  there  is  no  entirely  com- 
petent and  emblematic  likeness  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
in  picture  or  statue,  there  is  not — perhaps  cannot 
be — any  fully  appropriate  literary  statement  or  sum- 
ming-up of  him,  yet  in  existence. 

The  best  way  to  estimate  the  value  of  Lincoln  is 
to  think  what  the  condition  of  America  would  be  to- 
day, if  he  had  never  lived — never  been  President. 
His  nomination  and  first  election  were  mainly  acci- 
dents, experiments.  Severely  viewed,  one  cannot 
think  very  much  of  American  Political  Parties,  from 
the  beginning,  after  the  Revolutionary  War,  down 
to  the  present  time.  Doubtless,  while  they  have  had 
their  uses — have  been  and  are  "the  grass  on  which 
the  cow  feeds  " — and  indispensable  economies  of 
growth — it  is  undeniable  that  under  flippant  names 
they  have  merely  identified  tem.porary  passions,  or 
freaks,  or  sometimes  prejudice,  ignorance,  or  hatred. 
The  only  thing  like  a  great  and  worthy  idea  vitaliz- 
ing a  party  and  making  it  heroic  was  the  enthusiasm 
in  '64  for  re-electing  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the  rea- 
son behind  that  enthusiasm. 


BY    WALT    WHITMAN.  473 

How  does  this  man  compare  with  the  acknowl- 
edged "Father  of  his  country?"  Washington  was 
modeled  on  the  best  Saxon  and  Franklin  of  the  age 
of  the  Stuarts  (rooted  in  the  Elizabethan  period) — 
was  essentially  a  noble  Englishman,  and  just  the 
kind  needed  for  the  occasions  and  the  times  of  1776- 
'83.  Lincoln,  underneath  his  practicality,  was  far 
less  European,  far  more  Western,  original,  essen- 
tially non-conventional,  and  had  a  certain  sort  of 
out-door  or  prairie  stamp.  One  of  the  best  of 
the  late  commentators  on  Shakespeare  (Professor 
Dowden),  makes  the  height  and  aggregate  of 
his  quality  as  a  poet  to  be,  that  he  thoroughly 
blended  the  ideal  with  the  practical  or  realistic.  If 
this  be  so,  I  should  say  that  what  Shakespeare  did 
in  poetic  expression,  Abraham  Lincoln  essentially 
did  in  his  personal  and  official  life.  I  should  say 
the  invisible  foundations  and  vertebra  of  his  char- 
acter, more  than  any  man's  in  history,  were  mystical, 
abstract,  moral  and  spiritual — while  upon  all  of  them 
was  built,  and  out  of  all  of  them  radiated,  under  the 
control  of  the  average  of  circumstances,  what  the  vul- 
gar call  Jiorse-scnsc,  and  a  life  often  bent  by  temporary 
but  most  urgent  materialistic  and  political  reasons. 

He  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  indomitable 
firmness  (even  obstinacy)  on  rare  occasions,  involv- 
ing great  points  ;  but  he  was  generally  very  easy, 
flexible,  tolerant,  respecting  minor  matters.      I   note 


474  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

that  even  those  reports  and  anecdotes  intended  to 
level  him  down,  all  leave  the  tinge  of  a  favorable 
impression  of  him.  As  to  his  religious  nature,  it 
seems  to  me  to  have  certainly  been  of  the  amplest, 
deepest-rooted  kind. 

But  I  do  not  care  to  dwell  on  the  features  pre- 
sented so  many  times,  and  that  will  readily  occur  to 
every  one  in  recalling  Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  era. 
It  is  more  from  the  wish — and  it  no  doubt  actuates 
others — to  bring  for  our  own  sake,  some  record, 
however  incompetent — some  leaf  or  little  wreath  to 
place,  as  on  a  grave. 

Already  a  new  generation  begins  to  tread  the 
stage,  since  the  persons  and  events  of  the  Secession 
War.  I  have  more  than  once  fancied  to  myself  the 
time  when  the  present  century  has  closed  and  a  new 
one  opened,  and  the  men  and  deeds  of  that  contest 
have  become  vague  and  mythical — fancied  perhaps 
in  some  great  Western  city,  or  group  collected 
together,  or  public  festival,  where  the  days  of  old,  of 
1863  and  '4  and  '5  are  discussed — some  ancient  sol- 
dier sitting  in  the  background  as  the  talk  goes  on, 
and  betraying  himself  by  his  emotion  and  moist  eyes 
— like  the  journeying  Ithacan  at  the  banquet  of 
King  Alcinovis,  when  the  bard  sings  the  contending 
warriors,  and  their  battles  on  the  plains  of  Troy: 

**  So  from  the  sluices  of  Ulysses'  eyes, 
Fast  fell  the  tears,  and  sighs  succeeded  sighs." 


BY    WALT    WHITMAN.  475 

I  have  fancied,  I  say,  some  such  venerable  reHc  of 
this  time  of  ours,  preserved  to  the  next  or  still  the 
next  generation  of  America.  I  have  fancied  on 
such  occasion,  the  young  men  gathering  around  ;  the 
awe,  the  eager  questions.  "  What !  have  you  seen 
Abraham  Lincoln — and  heard  him  speak  —  and 
touched  his  hand  ?  Have  you,  with  your  own  eyes, 
looked  on  Grant,  and  Lee  and  Sherman?" 

Dear  to  Democracy,  to  the  very  last !  And 
among  the  paradoxes  generated  by  America  not  the 
least  curious,  was  that  spectacle  of  all  the  kings  and 
queens  and  emperors  of  the  earth,  many  from  re- 
mote distances,  sending  tributes  of  condolence  and 
sorrow  in  memory  of  one  raised  through  the  com- 
monest average  of  life — a  rail-splitter  and  fiat-boat- 
man ! 

Considered  from  contemporary  points  of  view — 
who  knows  what  the  future  may  decide  ? — and  from 
the  points  of  view  of  current  Democracy  and  The 
Union  (the  only  thing  like  passion  or  infatuation  in 
the  man  was  the  passion  for  the  Union  of  These 
States),  Abraham  Lincoln  seems  to  me  the  grandest 
figure  yet,  on  all  the  crowded  canvas  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century. 

WALT  WHITMAN. 


XXVIII. 

DoNN  Piatt. 

No  greater  truth  found  expression  in  poetic 
words  than  that  which  Sir  Henry  Taylor 
puts  in  the  speech  of  Phihp  Van  Artevelde,  when 
he  says,  "  the  world  knows  not  its  greatest  men." 
The  poet  restricted  his  meaning  to 

"  The  kings  of  thought, 
Who  wage  contention  with  their  time's  decay. 
And  of  the  past  are  all  that  will  not  pass  away. 

But  it  extends,  as  well,  to  those  men  of  affairs  who 
earn  the  admiration  of  the  crowd  they  control. 
This  ignorance  comes  of  the  fact  that  great  men 
have  enemies  while  alive,  and  friends  when  dead  ; 
and,  between  the  two,  the  objects  of  hate  and  love 
pass  into  historical  phantoms  far  more  unreal  than 
their  ghosts  are  supposed  to  be.  With  us,  when  a 
leader  dies,  all  good  men  go  to  lying  about  him,  and 
from  the  monument  that  covers  his  remains  to  the 
last  echo  of  the  rural  press,  in  speeches,  sermons, 
eulogies  and  reminiscences,  we  have  naught  but 
pious  lies.  There  is  no  tyranny  so  despotic  as  that 
of  public  opinion   among  a  free  people.     The  rule 


478  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

of  the  majority  is  to  the  last  extent  exacting  and 
brutal.  When  brought  to  bear  upon  our  eminent 
men,  it  is  also  senseless.  Poor  Garfield,  with  his 
sensitive  temperament,  was  almost  driven  to  suicide 
by  abuse  while  alive.  He  fell  by  the  shot  of  an  as- 
sassin, and  passed  in  an  instant  to  the  roll  of  popu- 
lar saints.  One  day  it  was  contempt  to  say  a  word 
in  his  favor,  the  next  it  was  dangerous  to  repeat  any 
of  the  old  abuse. 

History  is,  after  all,  the  crystallization  of  popular 
beliefs.  As  a  pleasant  fiction  is  more  acceptable 
than  a  naked  fact,  and  as  the  historian  shapes  his 
wares,  like  any  other  dealer,  to  suit  his  customers, 
one  can  readily  see  that  our  chronicles  are  only  a 
duller  sort  of  fiction  than  the  popular  novels  so 
eagerly  read  ;  not  that  they  are  true,  but  they  deal 
in  what  we  long  to  have — the  truth.  Popular  beliefs, 
in  time,  come  to  be  superstitions,  and  create  gods 
and  devils.  Thus  Washington  is  deified  into  an  im- 
possible man,  and  Aaron  Burr  has  passed  into  a  like 
impossible  human  monster.  Through  the  same  pro- 
cess Abraham  Lincoln,  one  of  our  truly  great,  has 
almost  gone  from  human  knowledge.  I  hear  of  him, 
read  of  him  in  eulogies  and  biographies,  and  fail  to 
recognize  the  man  I  encountered,  for  the  first  time, 
in  the  canvass  that  called  him  from  private  life  to  be 
President  of  the  then  disuniting  United  States. 

General    Robert    E.    Schenck    and    I    had   been 


BY  DONN  PIATT. 


479 


selected  to  canvass  Southern  Illinois  in  behalf  of 
free  soil  and  Abraham  Lincoln.  That  part  of  Illi- 
nois was  then  known  as  Egypt,  and  in  our  mission- 
ary labors  we  learned  there  that  the  American  eagle 
sometimes  lays  rotten  eggs.  Our  labors  on  the 
stump  were  closed  in  the  wigwam  at  Springfield  a 
few  nights  previous  to  the  election.  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  present,  and  listened,  with  intense  interest,  to 
General  Schenck's  able  argument.  I  followed  in  a 
cheerful  review  of  the  situation,  that  seemed  to 
amuse  the  crowd,  and  none  more  so  than  our  can- 
didate for  the  Presidency.  We  were  both  invited 
to  return  to  Springfield,  at  the  jubilee,  should  suc- 
cess make  such  rejoicing  proper.  We  did  return, 
for  this  homely  son  of  toil  was  elected,  and  we 
found  Springfield  drunk  with  delight.  On  the  day 
of  our  arrival  we  were  invited  to  a  supper  at  the 
house  of  the  President-elect.  It  was  a  plain,  com- 
fortable frame  structure,  and  the  supper  was  an  old- 
fashioned  mess  of  indigestion,  composed  mainly  of 
cake,  pies  and  chickens,  the  last  evidently  killed  in 
the  morning,  to  be  eaten,  as  best  they  might,  that 
evening. 

After  the  supper,  we  sat,  far  into  the  night,  talk- 
ing over  the  situation.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  home- 
liest man  I  ever  saw.  His  body  seemed  to  me  a 
huge  skeleton  in  clothes.  Tall  as  he  was,  his  hands 
and    feet    looked   out  of    proportion,   so    long  and 


480  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

clumsy  were  they.  Every  movement  was  awkward 
in  the  extreme.  He  sat  with  one  leg  thrown  over 
the  other,  and  the  pendent  foot  swung  almost  to  the 
floor.  And  all  the  while,  two  little  boys,  his  sons, 
clambered  over  those  legs,  patted  his  cheeks,  pulled 
his  nose,  and  poked  their  fingers  in  his  eyes,  with- 
out causing  reprimand  or  even  notice.  He  had  a 
face  that  defied  artistic  skill  to  soften  or  idealize. 
The  multiplicity  of  photographs  and  engravings 
makes  it  familiar  to  the  public.  It  was  capable  of 
few  expressions,  but  those  were  extremely  striking. 
When  in  repose,  his  face  was  dull,  heavy  and  repel- 
lent. It  brightened,  like  a  lit  lantern,  when  ani- 
mated. His  dull  eyes  would  fairly  sparkle  with  fun, 
or  express  as  kindly  a  look  as  I  ever  saw,  when 
moved  by  some  matter  of  human  interest. 

I  soon  discovered  that  this  strange  and  strangely 
gifted  man,  while  not  at  all  cynical,  was  a  sceptic. 
His  view  of  human  nature  was  low,  but  good- 
natured.  I  could  not  call  it  suspicious,  but  he  be- 
lieved only  what  he  saw.  This  low  estimate  of 
humanity  blinded  him  to  the  South.  He  could  not 
understand  that  men  would  get  up  in  their  wrath 
and  fight  for  an  idea.  He  considered  the  move- 
ment South  as  a  sort  of  political  game  of  bluff,  got- 
ten up  by  politicians,  and  meant  solely  to  frighten 
the  North.  He  believed  that, when  the  leaders  saw 
their  efforts  in  that  direction  were  unavailino^,  the 


B  Y  DONN  PI  A  TT. 


481 


tumult  would  subside.  "  They  won't  give  up  the 
offices,"  I  remember  he  said,  and  added,  "  were  it 
believed  that  vacant  places  could  be  had  at  the 
North  Pole,  the  road  there  would  be  lined  with 
dead  Virginians."  He  unconsciously  accepted,  for 
himself  and  party,  the  same  low  line  that  he  awarded 
the  South.  Expressing  no  sympathy  for  the  slave, 
he  laughed  at  the  Abolitionists  as  a  disturbing  ele- 
ment easily  controlled,  and  without  showing  any 
dislike  to  the  slave-holders,  said  only  that  their  am- 
bition was  to  be  restrained. 

I  gathered  more  of  this  from  what  Mrs.  Lincoln 
said  than  from  the  utterances  of  our  host.  This 
good  lady  injected  remarks  into  the  conversation 
with  more  force  than  logic,  and  was  treated  by  her 
husband  with  about  the  same  good-natured  indiffer- 
ence with  which  he  regarded  the  troublesome  boys. 
In  the  wife's  talk  of  the  coming  administration 
there  was  an  amusing  assumption  that  struck  me 
as  very  womanly,  but  somewhat  ludicrous.  For  in- 
stance, she  said,  "  The  country  will  find  how  we  re- 
gard that  abolition  sneak,  Seward!"  Mr.  Lincoln 
put  the  remarks  aside,  very  much  as  he  did  the  hand 
of  one  of  his  boys  when  that  hand  invaded  his  ca- 
pacious mouth. 

We  were  not  at  a  loss  to  get  at  the  fact,  and  the 
reason  for  it,  in  the  man  before  us.  Descended 
from  the  poor  whites  of  a  slave  State,  through  many 

3T 


482  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

o-enerations,  lie  Inherited  the  contempt,  if  not  the 
hatred,  held  by  that  class  for  the  negro.  A  self- 
made  man,  with  scarcely  a  winter's  schooling  from 
books,  his  strong  nature  was  built  on  what  he  inher- 
ited, and  he  could  no  more  feel  a  sympathy  for 
that  wretched  race  than  he  could  for  the  horse  he 
worked  or  the  hog  he  killed.  In  this  he  exhibited 
the  marked  trait  that  governed  his  public  life.  He 
never  rose  above  the  mass  he  influenced,  and  was 
strong  with  the  people  from  the  fact  that  he  accom- 
panied the  commons  without  any  attempt  to  lead, 
save  in  the  direction  they  sought  to  follow.  He 
knew,  and  saw  clearly,  that  the  people  of  the  free 
States  had,  not  only,  no  sympathy  with  the  abolition 
of  slavery,  but  held  fanatics,  as  Abolitionists  were 
called,  in  utter  abhorrence.  While  it  seemed  a 
cheap  philanthropy,  and  therefore  popular,  to  free  an- 
other man's  slave,  the  fact  was  that  it  was  not  an- 
other man's  slave.  The  unrequited  toil  of  the  slave 
was  more  valuable  to  the  North  than  to  the  South. 
With  our  keen  business  instincts,  we  of  the  free 
States  utilized  the  brutal  work  of  the  masters.  They 
made,  without  saving,  all  that  we  accumulated. 
The  Abolitionist  was  hunted  and  imprisoned  under 
the  shadow  of  the  Bunker  Hill  Monument  as  keenly 
as  he  was  tracked  by  bloodhounds  at  the  South. 
Wendell  Phillips,  the  silver-tongued  advocate  of 
human  rights,  was,  while  Mr.  Lincoln  talked  to  us, 


B  V  DONN  PI  A  TT.  483 

beinof  ostracized  at  Boston  and  rotten-egfo-ed  at  Cin- 
cinnati.  A  keen  knowledge  of  human  nature  in  a 
jury,  more  than  a  knowledge  of  law,  in  his  case,  had 
put  our  President-elect  at  the  head  of  his  profession, 
and  this  same  knowledge  made  him  master  of  the 
situation  when  he  came  to  mold  into  action  the 
stirred  impulses  of  the  people. 

I  felt  myself  studying  this  strange,  quaint,  great 
man  with  keen  interest.  A  newly  fashioned  individ- 
uality had  come  within  the  circle  of  my  observation. 
I  saw  a  man  of  coarse,  rough  fiber,  without  culture, 
and  yet  of  such  force  that  every  observation  was 
original,  incisive  and  striking,  while  his  illustrations 
were  as  quaint  as  ^sop's  fables.  He  had  little  taste 
for,  and  less  knowledge  of,  literature,  and  while  well 
up  in  what  we  call  history,  limited  his  acquaintance 
with  fiction  to  that  somber  poem  known  as  "Why 
should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  ?  " 

It  was  well  for  us  that  our  President  proved  to  be 
what  I  then  recognized.  He  was  equal  to  the  awful 
strain  put  upon  him  in  the  four  years  of  terrible 
strife  that  followed.  A  man  of  delicate  mold  and 
sympathetic  nature,  such  as  Chase  or  Seward,  would 
have  broken  down,  not  from  overwork,  although 
that  was  terrible,  but  from  the  over-anxiety  that 
kills.  Lincoln  had  none  of  this.  He  faced  and  lived 
through  the  awful  responsibility  of  the  situation  with 
the  high  courage  and  comfort  that  came  of  indiffer- 


484  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ence.  At  the  darkest  period,  for  us,  of  the  war, 
when  the  enemy's  cannon  were  throbbing  in  its  roar 
along  the  walls  of  our  Capitol,  I  heard  him  say  to 
General  Schenck,  "  I  enjoy  my  rations,  and  sleep  the 
sleep  of  the  innocent." 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  believe,  could  not  be  made  to 
believe,  that  the  South  meant  secession  and  war. 
When  I  told  him,  subsequently  to  this  conversation, 
at  a  dinner-table  in  Chicago,  where  the  Hon.  Han- 
nibal Hamlin,  General  Schenck,  and  others  were 
guests,  that  the  Southern  people  were  in  dead  ear- 
nest, meant  war,  and  I  doubted  whether  he  would  be 
inaugurated  at  Washington,  he  laughed  and  said  the 
fall  of  pork  at  Cincinnati  had  affected  me.  I  became 
somewhat  irritated,  and  told  him  that  in  ninety  days 
the  land  would  be  whitened  with  tents.  He  said  in 
reply,  "  Well,  we  won't  jump  that  ditch  until  we 
come  to  it,"  and  then,  after  a  pause,  he  added,  "  I 
must  run  the  machine  as  I  find  it."  I  take  no  credit 
to  myself  for  this  power  of  prophecy.  I  only 
said  what  every  one  acquainted  with  the  Southern 
people  knew,  and  the  wonder  is  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln should  have  been  so  blind  to  the  coming 
storm. 

The  epigrammatic  force  of  his  expressions  was 
remarkable  for  the  singular  purity  of  his  words. 
What  he  said  was  so  original  that  I  reduced  much 
of  it  to  writinor  at  the  time.      One  of  these  was  this, 


BY  DONN  PIATT.  485 

on  secession  :  "  If  our  Southern  friends  are  right  in 
their  claim,  the  framers  of  the  government  carefully 
planned  the  rot  that  now  threatens  their  work  with 
destruction.  If  one  State  has  the  right,  at  will,  to 
withdraw,  certainly  a  majority  have  the  right,  and  we 
have  the  result  given  us  of  the  States  being  able  to 
force  out  one  State.     That  is  logical." 

We  remained  at  Springfield  several  days,  and  then 
accompanied  the  President-elect,  on  his  invitation, 
to  Chicago.  The  invitation  was  so  pressing  that 
I  believed  Mr.  Lincoln  intended  calling  General 
Schenck  to  his  Cabinet.  I  am  still  of  this  opinion, 
and  attribute  the  change  to  certain  low  intrigues 
hatched  at  Chicago  by  the  newly  created  politicians 
of  that  locality,  who  saw  in  the  coming  adminis- 
tration opportunities  for  plunder  that  Robert  E. 
Schenck's  known  probity  would  have  blasted. 

Subsequent  to  the  supper  we  had  gatherings  at 
Mr.  Lincoln's  old  law  office,  and  at  the  political 
head-quarters,  at  which  men  only  formed  the  com- 
pany ;  and  before  those  good  honest  citizens,  who 
fairly  worshiped  their  distinguished  neighbor,  Mr. 
Lincoln  gave  way  to  his  natural  bent  for  fun,  and 
told  very  amusing  stories,  always  in  quaint  illustra- 
tion of  the  subject  under  discussion,  no  one  of  which 
will  bear  printing.  They  were  coarse,  and  were 
saved  from  vulgarity  only  by  being  so  strangely  in 
point,  and  told   not   for  the  sake   of  the  telling,  as 


486  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

if  he  enjoyed  the  stories  themselves,  but  that  they 
were,  as  I  have  said,  so  quaintly  illustrative. 

The  man  who  could  open  a  Cabinet  meeting  called 
to  discuss  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  by  read- 
inof  Artemus  Ward,  who  called  for  a  comic  sone  on 
the  bloody  battle-field,  was  the  same  man  who  could 
guide  with  clear  mind  and  iron  hand  the  diplomacy 
that  kept  off  the  fatal  interference  of  Europe,  while 
conducting  at  home  the  most  horrible  of  all  civil 
wars  that  ever  afflicted  a  people.  He  reached  with 
ease  the  highest  and  the  lowest  level,  and  on  the 
very  field  that  he  shamed  with  a  ribald  song  he  left 
a  record  of  eloquence  never  reached  by  human  lips 
before. 

There  is  a  popular  belief  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  of  so  kind  and  forgiving  a  nature  that  his  gen- 
tler impulses  interfered  with  his  duty.  In  proof  of 
this,  attention  is  called  to  the  fact  that  throusfh  all 
the  war  he  never  permitted  a  man  to  be  shot  for  de- 
sertion. The  belief  is  erroneous.  There  never  lived 
a  man  who  could  say  "  no  "  with  easier  facility,  and 
abide  by  his  saying  with  more  firmness,  than  Presi- 
dent Lincoln.  His  good-natured  manner  misled  the 
common  mind.  It  covered  as  firm  a  character  as 
nature  ever  clad  with  human  flesh,  and  I  doubt 
whether  Mr.  Lincoln  had  at  all  a  kind,  forgiving 
nature.  Such  traits  are  not  common  to  successful 
leaders.       They,    like     Hannibal,    melt    their    way 


BY  DONN  PIATT.  48/ 

through  rocks  with  hot  vinegar,  not  honey.  And 
that  good-natured  way  more  generally  covers  a  self- 
ish than  a  generous  disposition.  Men  instinctively 
find  it  easier  to  glide  comfortably  through  life  with  a 
round,  oily,  elastic  exterior,  than  in  an  angular,  hard 
one.  Such  give  way  in  trifles  and  hold  their  own 
adversely  in  all  the  more  serious  sacrifices  of  self  to 
the  orood  or  comfort  of  others.  If  one  doubts  what 
I  here  assert,  let  such  turn  and  study  the  hard,  angu- 
lar, coarse  face  of  this  great  man.  Nature  never 
gave  that  as  an  indication  of  a  tender,  yielding  dis- 
position. Nor  had  his  habits  of  life  in  any  respect 
softened  its  hard  lines.  Hazlitt  tells  us,  with  truth, 
that  while  we  may  control  the  voice,  and  discipline 
the  manner,  the  face  is  beyond  command.  Day  and 
night,  waking  and  sleeping,  our  character  is  being 
traced  there,  to  be  read  by  all  men  who  care  to 
make  the  face  a  study.  It  is  common,  for  example, 
for  the  President  to  be  in  continual  trouble  over  sup- 
posed promises  to  office-seekers.  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
none  of  this.  He  would  refuse  so  clearly  and  posi- 
tively that  it  left  no  doubt  and  no  hope,  and  yet  in 
such  a  pleasant  manner  that  the  applicant  left  with 
no  ill  feeling  in  his  disappointment.  I  heard  Secre- 
tary Seward  say,  in  this  connection,  that  President 
Lincoln  "had  a  cunning  that  was  genius."  As  for 
his  steady  refusal  to  sanction  the  death  penalty  in 
cases  of  desertion,  there  was  far  more  policy  in  the 


488  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

course  than  kind  feeling.  To  assert  the  contrary 
is  to  detract  from  Lincoln's  force  of  character  as 
well  as  intellect.  As  Secretary  Chase  said  at  the 
time,  "  such  kindness  to  the  criminal  is  cruelty  to 
the  army,  for  it  encourages  the  bad  to  leave  the 
brave  and  patriotic  unsupported."  The  fact  is  that 
our  war  President  was  not  lost  in  his  high  admira- 
tion of  brigadiers  and  major-generals,  and  had  a 
positive  dislike  for  their  methods  and  the  despotism 
on  which  an  army  is  based.  He  knew  that  he  was 
dependent  on  volunteers  for  soldiers,  and  to  force 
on  such  the  stern  discipline  of  the  regular  army  was 
to  render  the  service  unpopular.  And  it  pleased 
him  to  be  the  source  of  mercy,  as  well  as  the  fount- 
ain of  honor,  in  this  direction. 

I  was  sitting  with  General  Dan  Tyler,  of  Connec- 
ticut, in  the  antechamber  of  the  War  Department, 
shortly  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Buell  court  of 
inquiry,  of  which  we  had  been  members,  when 
President  Lincoln  came  in  from  the  room  of  Secre- 
tary Stanton.  Seeing  us,  he  said  :  "  Well,  gentlemen, 
you  did  not  survive  the  war,  and  now  have  you  any 
matter  worth  reporting,  after  such  a  protracted  in- 
vestigation ? "  '*  I  think  so,  Mr.  President,"  replied 
General  Tyler.  "  We  had  it  proven  that  Bragg,  with 
less  than  ten  thousand  men,  drove  your  eighty-three 
thousand  under  Buell  back  from  before  Chattanooga, 
down  to  the  Ohio  at  Louisville,  marched  round  us 


BY  BONN  PIATT.  489 

twice,  then  doubled  us  up  at  Perryville,  and  finally 
got  out  of  Kentucky  with  all  his  plunder."  "  Now, 
Tyler,"  said  the  President,  "  what  is  the  meaning  of 
all  this  ;  what  is  the  lesson  ?  Don't  our  men  march 
as  well,  and  fight  as  well,  as  these  rebels?  If  not, 
there  is  a  fault  somewhere.  We  are  all  of  the  same 
family — same  sort."  "  Yes,  there  is  a  lesson,"  replied 
General  Tyler.  "  We  are  of  the  same  sort,  but  sub- 
ject to  a  different  handling.  Bragg's  little  force  was 
superior  to  our  larger  number,  because  he  had  it 
under  control.  If  a  man  left  his  ranks,  he  was  pun- 
ished ;  if  he  deserted,  he  was  shot.  We  had  nothing 
of  that  sort.  If  we  attempt  to  shoot  a  deserter,  you 
pardon  him,  and  our  army  is  without  discipline." 
The  President  looked  perplexed.  "  Why  do  you  in- 
terfere ?"  General  Tyler  continued.  "  Congress  has 
taken  from  you  all  responsibility."  "  Yes,"  answered 
the  President  impatiently,  "  Congress  has  taken  the 
responsibility,  and  left  the  women  to  howl  about 
me  ; "  and  so  he  strode  away,  and  General  Tyler  re- 
marked that,  as  it  was  not  necessary  for  the  Presi- 
dent to  see  one  of  these  women,  to  jeopard  an  army 
on  such  grounds  was  very  feeble.  The  fact  was, 
however,  as  I  have  said,  the  President  had  other 
and  stronger  motives  for  his  conduct. 

Of  President  Lincoln's  high  sense  of  justice,  or 
rather  fair  play.  I  have  a  vivid  recollection.  Previous 
to  Lee's  invasion  of  Pennsylvania,  rumors  of  which 


490  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

reached  Washington  in  advance  of  that  suicidal  move- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  Confederates,  General  Hal- 
leck  issued  one  of  his  non-committal  orders  to  Gen- 
eral Schenck,  then  in  command  at  Baltimore,  advising 
the  concentration  of  our  troops  at  Harper's  Ferry. 
This  referred  especially  to  General  Milroy's  10,000 
men  at  Winchester.  I  was  sent,  as  chief  of  staff,  to 
look  into  Milroy's  condition,  and  empowered  to  let 
him  remain  or  order  him  back,  as  I  might  see  fit. 
Winchester,  as  a  fortified  place,  was  a  military  blun- 
der. It  covered  nothing,  while  a  force  there  was  in 
constant  peril.  I  had  learned  enough  in  the  service 
to  know  that  a  subordinate  should  take  no  chances, 
and  I  ordered  Milroy  back  to  Harper's  Ferry.  Gen- 
eral Schenck,  at  Milroy's  earnest  request,  counter- 
manded my  order,  and  three  days  after  Milroy  found 
himself  surrounded  by  Lee's  entire  army.  The  gal- 
lant old  soldier  cut  his  way  out,  with  his  entire  com- 
mand. Of  course  there  was  a  heavy  loss  of  material. 
For  this  Milroy  was  put  under  arrest  by  Secretary 
Stanton,  and  court-martialed  by  Halleck.  Milroy 
shielded  himself  behind  Schenck's  order,  so  that  the 
court  convened  was  really  trying  my  general  without 
the  advantages  given  him,  as  defendant,  of  being 
heard  in  his  defense.  General  Schenck  was  sum- 
moned to  appear,  and  instead  of  appearing  drew  up 
a  protest,  that  he  directed  me  not  only  to  take  to  the 
President,  but  read  to  him,  fearing  the  protest  would 


BV  DON  riATT.  49 1 

be  pigeon-holed  for  consideration  when  consideration 
would  be  too  late.  It  was  late  in  the  afternoon,  and 
ridine  to  the  White  House,  I  was  told  the  President 
could  be  found  at  the  War  Department.  I  met  him 
coming  out,  and  delivered  my  message.  "  Let  me  see 
the  protest,"  said  the  President  as  we  walked  toward 
the  Executive  Mansion.  "  General  Schenck  ordered 
me,  Mr.  President,  to  read  it  to  you."  "  Well,  I  can 
read,"  he  responded  sharply,  and  as  he  was  General 
Schenck's  superior  officer  I  handed  him  the  paper. 
He  read  as  he  strode  along.  Arriving  at  the  en- 
trance to  the  White  House,  we  found  the  carriage 
awaiting  to  carry  him  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  where 
he  was  then  spending  the  summer,  and  the  guard  de- 
tailed to  escort  him  drawn  up  in  front.  The  Presi- 
dent sat  down  upon  the  steps  of  the  porch,  and  con- 
tinued his  study  of  the  protest.  I  have  him  photo- 
graphed on  my  mind,  as  he  sat  there,  and  a  strange 
picture  he  presented.  His  long,  slender  legs  were 
drawn  up  until  his  knees  were  level  with  his  chin, 
while  his  long  arms  held  the  paper,  which  he  studied 
regardless  of  the  crowd  before  him.  He  read  on  to 
the  end,  then,  looking  up,  said :  "  Piatt,  don't  you 
think  that  you  and  Schenck  are  squealing,  like  pigs, 
before  you're  hurt  ?"  "  No,  Mr.  President."  "  Why, 
I  am  the  Court  of  Appeal,"  he  continued,  "  and  do 
you  think  I  am  going  to  have  an  injustice  done 
Schenck?"     "  Before  the  appeal  can  be  heard,  a  sol- 


AQ2  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

dier's  reputation  will  be  blasted  by  a  packed  court," 
I  responded.      "Come,  now,"  he  exclaimed,  an  ugly 
look  shading  his  face,  "you  and  I  are  lawyers,  and 
know  the  meaning  of  the  word  'packed.'     I  don't 
want  to  hear  it  from  your  lips  again.     What's  the 
matter  with  the  court  ?  "     "  It  is  illegally  organized 
by  General  Halleck."     "  Halleck's  act  is  mine."     "  I 
beg  your  pardon,  Mr.  President,  the  Rules  and  Reg- 
ulations direct  that   in  cases  of  this  sort  you  shall 
select  the  court ;   you  cannot  delegate  that  to  a  sub- 
ordinate   any    more    than    you    can    the    pardoning 
power,"  and  opening  the  book  I   pointed  to  the  ar- 
ticle.   "  That  is  a  point,"  he  said,  slowly  rising.    "  Do 
you  know,   Colonel,  that  I  have  been  so  busy  with 
this  war  I  have  never  read  the   Regulations.      Give 
me  that  book,  and  I'll  study  them  to-night."    "  I  beg 
your  pardon,  Mr.  President,"  I  said,  giving  him  the 
book,  "  but  in  the  mean  time  my  general  will  be  put 
under  arrest  for  disobedience,  and  the  mischief  will 
be  done."     "  That's  so,"   he    replied.      "  Here,  give 
me  a  pencil,"  and  tearing  off  a  corner  of  the  paper 
General  Schenck  had  sent  him,  he  wrote  :  "  All  pro- 
ceedings before  the  court  convened  to  try  General 
Milroy  are  suspended  until  further  orders. — A.  Lin- 
coln."    The  next  morning  I  clanked  into  the  court- 
room with  my  triangular  order,  and  had  the   grim 
satisfaction  of  seeing  the  owls  in  epaulets  file  out, 
never  to  be  called  again. 


B  Y  DONN  PIA  TT.  493 

With  all  his  awkwardness  of  manner,  and  utter  dis- 
regard of  social  conventionalities  that  seemed  to  in- 
vite familiarity,  there  was  something  about  Abraham 
Lincoln  that  enforced  respect.  No  man  presumed 
on  the  apparent  invitation  to  be  other  than  respect- 
ful. I  was  told  at  Springfield  that  this  accompanied 
him  through  life.  Among  his  rough  associates,  when 
young,  he  was  leader,  looked  up  to  and  obeyed,  be- 
cause they  felt  of  his  muscle  and  his  readiness  in  its 
use.  Among  his  associates  at  the  bar,  it  was  attrib- 
uted to  his  ready  wit,  which  kept  his  duller  associ- 
ates at  a  distance.  The  fact  was,  however,  that  this 
power  came  from  a  sense  of  a  reserve  force  of  intel- 
lectual ability  that  no  one  took  account  of,  save  in 
its  results.  Through  one  of  those  freaks  of  nature 
that  produce  a  Shakespeare  at  long  intervals,  a 
giant  had  been  born  to  the  poor  whites  of  Kentucky, 
and  the  sense  of  superiority  possessed  President 
Lincoln  at  all  times.  Unobtruding  and  even  unas- 
suming as  he  was,  he  was  not  modest  in  his  asser- 
tion, and  he  as  quietly  directed  Seward  in  shaping 
our  delicate  and  difficult  foreign  policy  as  he  con- 
trolled Chase  in  the  Treasury  and  Edwin  M.  Stan- 
ton in  the  War  Department.  These  men,  great  as 
they  were,  felt  their  inferiority  to  their  master,  and 
while  all  three  were  eaten  into  and  weakened  by 
anxiety,  he  ate  and  slept  and  jested  as  if  his  shoul- 
ders did  not  carry,  Atlas-like,  the  fate  of  an  empire. 


494  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

I  never  saw  him  angry  but  once,  and  I  had  no 
wish  to  see  a  second  exhibition  of  his  wrath.  We 
were  in  command  of  what  was  called  the  Middle 
Department,  with  head-quarters  at  Baltimore.  Gen- 
eral Schenck,  with  that  intense  loyalty  which  distin- 
guished this  eminent  soldier,  shifted  the  military 
sympathy  from  the  aristocracy  of  Maryland  to  the 
Union  men,  and  made  the  eloquent  Henry  Winter 
Davis  and  the  well-known  jurist  Judge  Bond  our  as- 
sociates and  advisers.  These  gentlemen  could  not 
understand  why,  having  such  entire  command  of 
Maryland,  the  government  did  not  make  it  a  free 
State,  and  so,  taking  the  property  from  the  disloyal, 
render  them  weak  and  harmless,  and  bring  the  bor- 
der of  free  States  to  the  capital  of  the  Union.  The 
fortifications  about  Baltimore,  used  heretofore  to 
threaten  that  city,  now,  under  the  influence  of  Davis, 
Bond,  Wallace,  and  others,  had  their  guns  turned  out- 
ward for  the  protection  of  the  place,  and  it  seemed 
only  necessary  to  inspire  the  negroes  with  a  faith 
in  us  as  liberators  to  perfect  the  work.  The  first  in- 
timation I  received  that  this  policy  of  freeing  Mary- 
land was  distasteful  to  the  administration  came  from 
Secretary  Stanton.  I  had  told  him  what  we  thought, 
and  what  we  hoped  to  accomplish.  I  noticed  an 
amused  expression  on  the  face  of  the  War  Secretary, 
and  when  I  ended  he  said  dryly,  "  You  and  Schenck 
had  better  attend  to  your  own  business."     I  asked 


BY  DONN  PIATT. 


495 


him  what  he  meant   by  "  our  business."     He   said, 
"  Obeying  orders,  that's  all." 

Not  long  after  this  talk  with  Mr.  Stanton,  the  gal- 
lant General  William  Birney,  son  of  the  eminent 
James  G.  Birney,  came  into  Maryland  to  recruit  for 
a  negro  brigade,  then  first  authorized.  I  directed 
Birney  to  recruit  slaves  only.  He  said  he  would  be 
glad  to  do  so,  but  wanted  authority  in  writing  from 
General  Schenck.  I  tried  my  general,  and  he  re- 
fused, saying  that  such  authority  could  come  only 
from  the  War  Department,  as  Birney  was  acting  di- 
rectly under  its  instructions.  I  could  not  move  him, 
and  knowing  that  he  had  a  leave  of  absence  for  a 
few  days,  to  transact  some  business  at  Boston,  I 
waited  patiently  until  he  was  fairly  off,  and  then  is- 
sued the  order  to  General  Birney.  The  General 
took  an  idle  government  steamer,  and  left  for  the 
part  of  Maryland  where  slaves  were  most  abundant. 
Birney  was  scarcely  out  of  sight  before  I  awakened 
to  the  opposition  I  had  excited.  The  Hon.  Rev- 
erdy  Johnson  appeared  at  head-quarters,  heading  a 
delegation  of  solid  citizens  who  wanted  the  Union 
and  slavery  saved,  one  and  inseparable.  I  gave 
them  scant  comfort,  and  they  left  for  Washington. 
That  afternoon  came  a  telegram  from  the  War  De- 
partment, asking  who  was  in  command  at  Baltimore. 
I  responded  that  General  Schenck,  being  absent  for 
a  few  days  only,  had  left  affairs   in  control  of    his 


496  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

chief  of  staff.  Then  came  a  curt  summons,  order- 
ing me  to  appear  at  the  War  Department.  I  obeyed, 
arriving  in  the  evening  at  the  old,  somber  build- 
ing. Being  informed  that  the  Secretary  was  at  the 
Executive  Mansion,  I  repaired  there,  sent  in  my 
card,  and  was  at  once  shown  into  the  presence,  not 
of  Mr.  Stanton,  but  of  the  President.  I  do  not  care 
to  recall  the  words  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  wrote  them 
out  that  night,  for  I  was  threatened  a  shameful  dis- 
missal from  the  service,  and  I  intended  appealing  to 
the  public.  They  were  exceedingly  severe,  for  the 
President  was  in  a  ragfe.  I  was  not  allowed  a  word 
in  my  own  defense,  and  was  only  permitted  to  say 
that  I  would  countermand  my  order  as  well  as  I 
could.  I  was  saved  cashiering  through  the  interfer- 
ence of  Stanton  and  Chase,  and  the  further  fact  that 
a  row  over  such  a  transaction  at  that  time  would 
have  been  extremely  awkward. 

My  one  act  made  Maryland  a  free  State.  Word 
went  out,  and  spread  like  wildfire,  that  "  Mr.  Lin- 
kum  was  a  callin'  on  de  slaves  to  fiofht  foh  freedum," 
and  the  hoe-handle  was  dropped,  never  again  to  be 
taken  up  b)^  unrequited  toil.  The  poor  creatures 
poured  into  Baltimore  with  their  families,  on  foot, 
on  horseback,  in  old  wagons,  and  even  on  sleds 
stolen  from  their  masters.  The  late  masters  became 
clamorous  for  compensation,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  or- 
dered a  commission  to  assess  damages.     Secretary 


BV  BONN  PIATT.  497 

Stanton  put  in  a  proviso  that  those  cases  only 
should  be  considered  where  the  claimant  could  take 
the  iron-bound  oath  of  allegiance.  Of  course  no 
slaves  were  paid  for. 

The  President  never  forgave  me.  Subsequently, 
when  General  Schenck  resigned  command  to  take 
his  seat  in  Congress,  the  Union  men  of  Maryland 
and  Delaware,  headed  by  Judge  Bond,  waited  on  the 
President  with  a  request  that  I  be  promoted  to  briga- 
dier-general and  put  in  command  of  the  Middle  De- 
partment. Mr.  Lincoln  heard  them  patiently,  and 
then  refused,  saying,  "  Schenck  and  Piatt  are  good 
fellows,  and  if  there  were  any  rotten  apples  in  the 
barrel  they'd  be  sure  to  hook  'em  out.  But  they  run 
their  machine  on  too  high  a  level  for  me.  They 
never  could  understand  that  I  was  boss."  Edwin 
M.  Stanton  told  me,  after  he  left  the  War  Depart- 
ment, that  when  he  sent  a  list  of  officers  to  the 
President,  my  name  included,  as  worthy  promotion, 
Lincoln  would  quietly  draw  his  pen  through  my 
name.  I  do  not  blame  him.  His  great,  thoughtful 
brain  saw  at  the  time  what  has  taken  years  for  us  to 
discover  and  appreciate.  He  understood  the  people 
he  held  to  a  death  struggle  in  behalf  of  the  great 
Republic,  and  knew  that,  while  the  masses  would 
fight  to  the  bitter  end  in  behalf  of  the  Union,  they 
would  not  kill  their  own  brothers,  and  spread  mourn- 
ing over  the  entire  land,  in  behalf  of  the  negro.  He 
32 


498  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

therefore  kept  the  cause  of  the  Union  to  the  front, 
and  wrote  to  Horace  Greeley  the  memorable  words  : 
"  If  to  preserve  the  Union  it  is  necessary  to  destroy 
slavery,  slavery  will  be  destroyed ;  and  if  to  preserve 
the  Union  slavery  is  to  be  maintained,  slavery  will 
be  maintained."  He  well  knew  that  the  North  was 
not  fio-htine  to  liberate  slaves,  nor  the  South  to 
preserve  slavery.  The  people  of  the  slave  States 
plunged  into  a  bloody  war  to  build  a  Southern  em- 
pire of  their  own,  and  the  people  of  the  North 
fought  to  preserve  the  government  of  the  fathers  on 
all  the  land  the  fathers  left  us.  In  that  awful  con- 
flict slavery  went  to  pieces. 

We  are  quick  to  forget  the  facts  and  slow  to 
recognize  the  truths  that  knock  from  us  our  preten- 
tious claims  to  a  high  philanthropy.  As  I  have  said, 
abolitionism  was  not  only  unpopular  when  the  war 
broke  out,  but  it  was  detested.  The  minority  that 
elected  Mr.  Lincoln  had  fallen  heir  to  the  Whig 
votes  of  the  North,  and  while  pledging  itself,  in  plat- 
forms and  speeches,  to  a  solemn  resolve  to  keep 
slavery  under  the  Constitution  in  the  States,  re- 
stricted its  antislavery  purpose  to  the  prevention  of 
its  spread  into  the  Territories.  I  remember  when 
the  Hutchinsons  were  driven  from  the  camps  of  the 
Potomac  Army  by  the  soldiers  for  singing  their  abo- 
lition songs,  and  I  remember  well  that  for  two  years 
nearly  of  our  service  as  soldiers  we  were  engaged  in 


BY  BONN  PIATT.  499 

returning  slaves  to  their  masters,  when  the  poor 
creatures  sought  shelter  in  our  lines. 

President  Lincoln's  patriotism  and  wisdom  rose 
above  impulse,  or  his  positive  temperament  and  in- 
tellect kept  him  free  of  mere  sentiment.  Looking 
back  now  at  this  grand  man,  and  the  grave  situation 
at  the  time,  I  am  ashamed  of  my  act  of  insubordina- 
tion, and  although  it  freed  Maryland  it  now  lowers 
me  in  my  own  estimation.  Had  the  President  car- 
ried his  threat  of  punishment  into  execution,  it  would 
have  been  just. 

The  popular  mind  is  slow  of  study,  and  I  fear  it 
will  be  long  ere  it  learns  that,  while  an  eminent  man 
wins  our  admiration  through  his  great  qualities,  he 
can  hold  our  love  only  from  his  human  weaknesses 
that  make  him  one  of  ourselves.  We  are  told  that, 
with  the  multitude,  nothing  is  so  successful  as  suc- 
cess, yet  there  is  often  more  heroism  in  failure  than 
in  triumph.  The  one  is  frequently  the  result  of  acci- 
dent, while  the  other  holds  in  itself  all  that  endears 
the  martyr  to  the  human  heart.  The  unfortunate 
Hector  is,  after  all,  the  hero  of  the  Iliad,  and  not  the 
invulnerable  Achilles,  and  by  our  popular  process  of 
eliminating  all  human  weakness  from  our  great  men 
we  weaken,  and  in  a  measure  destroy,  their  immor- 
tality, for  we  destroy  them.  As  we  accept  the  sad, 
rugged,  homely  face,  and  love  it  for  what  it  is,  we 
should  accept  it  as  it  was,  the  grandest  figure  loom- 


500  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ing  up  in  our  history  as  a  nation.  Washington 
taught  the  world  to  know  us,  Lincoln  taught  us  to 
know  ourselves.  The  first  won  for  us  our  independ- 
ence, the  last  wrought  out  our  manhood  and  self- 
respect. 

DONN  PIATT. 


XXIX. 

E.  W.'  Andrews. 

ONE  morning,  early  in  the  spring  of  1863,  a 
middle-aged  lady  appeared  at  the  garrison 
gate  of  Fort  McHenry,  and  applied  for  permission 
to  visit  head-quarters. 

This  was  some  time  after  the  battle  foueht  at 
Nashville,  Tennessee,  where  our  troops  were  vic- 
torious under  the  command  of  General  Franklin. 

The  lady's  request  was  sent  up  to  head-quarters 
by  the  officer  of  the  guard.  At  that  time,  I  was 
chief  of  staff  to  General  W.  W.  Morris,  of  the 
regular  army,  then  commanding  the  defenses  of 
Baltimore.  Representing  my  chief,  who  was  absent, 
I  granted  the  lady's  request. 

Her  appearance,  as  she  entered  head-quarters,  in- 
spired every  one  with  the  deepest  interest,  for,  with 
the  calm  self-possession  and  distinguished  bearing 
of  an  accomplished  lady,  there  was  an  expression  of 
profound  sadness  in  her  face  which  appealed  touch- 
ingly  to  every  heart. 

She  told  me  her  story  with  modest  dignity.  She 
was  a  widow,  she  said,  and  resided  near  Nashville, 


502  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Tennessee,  but,  although  a  native  of  that  State,  she 
had  no  sympathy  with  the  rebelHon.  She  had  an 
only  son.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  he  was  a 
student  in  a  Southern  college.  Without  her  knowl- 
edo-e  or  consent  he  enlisted  in  a  rebel  regiment,  and 
was  severely  wounded  at  the  battle  of  Nashville, 
taken  prisoner,  and  carried  North. 

The  day  after  the  battle,  to  her  great  astonish- 
ment and  grief,  she  first  heard  of  these  facts.  She 
at  once  applied  to  the  commanding  general  for  leave 
to  eo  through  the  lines  and  follow  her  son.  Leave 
was  granted.  She  first  found  her  son  at  Louisville, 
then  followed  him  to  Wheeling,  West  Virginia,  and 
thence  to  Fort  McHenry,  Baltimore.  Here  he  was 
placed  in  the  garrison  hospital. 

The  mother  desired  the  privilege  of  seeing  her 
son  in  order  to  learn  his  present  condition,  and  to 
furnish  him  any  little  comforts  he  might  need  which 
were  not  supplied  under  army  regulations. 

Only  a  short  time  before,  an  order  had  been  re- 
ceived from  the  War  Department  prohibiting  all 
intercourse  between  citizens  and  prisoners  of  war. 

I  expressed  my  regret  that,  under  this  order,  I  must 
deny  her  request,  but  assured  her  that  she  should  be 
fully  informed  as  to  her  son's  condition,  and  have 
permission  to  send  him  anything  for  his  comfort  that 
the  post  surgeon  should  approve  of. 

The  post  surgeon  was  sent  for,  but  said  that  he 


BY  E.    W.    ANDRF.IVS.  503 

had  not  personally  examined  the  case  of  this  special 
prisoner,  but  added  that  she  might  go  with  him  to 
his  office  in  the  hospital,  and  he  would  make  in- 
quiries. She  went,  and  learned  that  her  son's  wound 
had  been  aggravated  by  his  journey  from  Wheeling, 
but  that  with  rest  and  careful  treatment  he  was  cer- 
tain to  recover. 

To  remove  all  doubts  from  her  mind  as  to  the 
comforts  furnished  patients  who  were  our  prison- 
ers of  war,  the  surgeon  said  to  her,  as  she  arose 
to  go: 

"  Let  me  show  you,  madam,  one  or  two  of  our 
prisoners'  wards,  so  that  you  may  see  for  yourself 
how  our  government  provides  for  the  sick  and 
wounded  of  the  enemy  who  are  captured." 

Gladly  the  mother  accepted  the  invitation.  Hardly 
had  they  entered,  when  the  lady,  descrying  her  boy 
through  a  half-open  door  in  an  adjoining  room, 
rushed  from  the  surgeon's  side.  Rapidly  following 
her,  he  saw  "a  scene,"  which,  he  said,  "was  too 
sacred  to  interrupt."  The  mother  was  on  her  knees 
by  the  cot  of  her  pale  and  emaciated  boy,  exclaim- 
ing, as  she  clasped  him  to  her  bosom  : 

"  Oh  !  my  blessed  child  !  I  vnist  see  you  if  I  die 
for  it!" 

The  kind-hearted  surgeon  turned  away  and  left 
the  mother  and  son  undisturbed. 

Soon  the  lady  returned  to  the  waiting  officer,  her 


504  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

face  suffused  with  tears,  but  beaming  with  hope  and 
joy,  as  she  said  : 

"  Oh,  sir!  my  blessed  boy  is  sorry  he  entered  the 
army,  and  wishes  to  give  his  parole  and  leave  the 
Confederate  service  forever.  Will  the  authorities 
permit  him  to  do  this?  Can  I  go  again  to  head- 
quarters ?  " 

They  came  together  to  head-quarters.  She  ap- 
proached me  with  a  look  of  mingled  fear  and  exulta- 
tion that  greatly  puzzled  me  ;  but  she  recounted  all 
that  had  occurred  at  the  hospital  with  perfect  frank- 
ness, and  said  : 

"  If  I  have  done  wrong,  punish  me  ;  but  I  could 
not  help  it." 

Of  course  I  did  not  utter  a  word  of  censure,  but 
in  answer  to  her  request  to  have  her  son  paroled,  I 
told  her  that  this  power  was  vested  in  the  President 
or  Secretary  of  War  alone,  and  advised  her  to  go  to 
Washington  and  appeal  to  Secretary  Stanton. 

The  next  day  she  went,  taking  with  her  a  letter 
of  introduction  to  the  Commissary-General  of  Pris- 
oners. 

In  two  days  she  returned  to  Fort  Henry,  disap- 
pointed and  crushed  in  heart  at  the  treatment  she 
had  received  from  Secretary  Stanton.  She  told  me 
her  story. 

"  I  took  your  note  of  introduction  to  General 
Hoffman,"  she  said,   "  and  he  kindly  spoke  to  the 


BY  E.    IV.    ANDREWS. 


505 


Secretary  of  my  purpose  in  visiting  Washington, 
and  afterward  he  went  with  me  and  introduced  me 
at  the  War  Department. 

"  As  we  entered  the  Secretary's  office,  Mr.  Stan- 
ton was  writing  at  his  desk.     General  Hoffman  said  : 

"  '  Mr.  Secretary,  this  is  the  lady  1  spoke  to  you 
about.  She  wishes  to  consult  you  about  releasing 
her  son,  who  is  a  prisoner  of  war,  wounded,  in  the 
hospital  at  Fort  Henry.'  The  General  then  turned 
and  left  the  room.  I  was  standing  near  the  door  of 
the  office.  Mr.  Stanton  never  looked  at  me  nor 
spoke.  After  a  minute  or  two  the- Secretary  turned 
round  in  his  chair,  and  abruptly,  in  a  severe  tone, 
said  : 

"  '  So,  you  are  the  woman  who  has  a  son  prisoner 
of  war  in  Fort  McHenry.'  " 

"  '  I  am  so  unfortunate,'  I  said. 

"  The  Secretary  then  answered  in  a  still  louder 
and  sterner  tone  of  voice,  leaving  me  standing  all 
the  time  : 

"  '  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  you,  and  no  time  to 
waste  on  you.  If  you  have  raised  up  sons  to  rebel 
against  the  best  government  under  the  sun,  you  and 
they  must  take  the  consequences.' 

"  I  attempted  to  say  to  him,"  continued  the  lady, 
"that  my  son  was  a  mere  boy,  scarcely  seventeen 
years  old,  and  had  entered  the  Confederate  service 
without  my  knowledge  or  approval,  but  before  I  had 


506  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOIN 

Uttered  five  words  he  fairly  yelled  at  me,  as  if  in  an 
insane  rage  : 

"  '  I  don't  want  to  hear  a  word  from  you.  I've  no 
time  to  waste  on  you.  I  want  you  to  go  at  once. 
I'll  do  nothing  for  you.' 

"  I  left,"  she  said,  ''  and  am  thankful  I  got  out  of 
Washington  alive.  Oh  !  why  are  such  men  intrusted 
with  power  ?" 

And  she  sobbed  as  if  her  heart  would  break. 

After  a  brief  silence,  I  asked  her  if  she  could  go 
to  Washington  again  ? 

"  What !  to  see  that  man  ?  No,  sir  !  Not  for  all 
Washington,"  she  exclaimed,  before  she  had  given  a 
moment  for  explanation. 

After  ascertaining  that  the  necessary  action  would 
not  be  hampered  by  poverty — that  she  had  means 
enough  to  pay  traveling  expenses— I  drew  up,  next 
day,  a  paper  addressed  to  the  President,  concisely 
stating  the  case,  and  asking  a  parole  for  the  boy. 
"She  signed  it ;  the  surgeon  certified  it.  She  was  ad- 
vised to  call  on  the  President,  and  given  directions 
how  and  when  to  get  an  interview. 

After  an  absence  of  three  days,  she  returned  to 
Fort  McHenry.  As  she  approached  the  desk  of  the 
officer  commanding,  tears  glistened  in  her  eyes,  but 
they  were  tears  of  gratitude.  Her  whole  counte- 
nance was  luminous  with  joy.  Handing  to  me  the 
same  official  envelope  which  had  inclosed  the  docu- 


BY  E.    W.    ANDREWS.  CQy 

ment  prepared  for  her  to  present  to  the  President, 
she  pointed  to  an  order  written  m  pencil  upon  it, 
and  exclaimed  with  deep  emotion  : 

"  My  boy  is  free  !  Thank  God  for  such  a  Presi- 
dent !     He  is  the  soul  of  goodness  and  honor  !" 

The  order  was  as  follows  : 

"Executive  Mansion, 
March  13,  1863. 

"  To  the  Commandant  at  Fort  McHenry  : 

"  General  : — You  will  deliver  to  the  bearer,  Mrs. 
Winston,  her  son,  now  held  a  prisoner  of  war  in 
Fort  McHenry,  and  permit  her  to  take  him  where 
she  will,  upon  his  taking  the  proper  parole  never 
again  to  take  up  arms  against  the  United  States. 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 

I  asked  her  how  the  President  received  her  when 
she  met  him  ? 

"With  the  kindness  of  a  brother,"  she  replied. 
"When  I  was  ushered  into  his  presence  he  was 
alone.  He  immediately  arose,  and,  pointing  to  a 
chair  by  his  side,  said  : 

"  '  Take  this  seat,  madam,  and  then  tell  me  what  I 
can  do  for  you.' 

"  I  took  the  envelope,  and  asked  him  if  he  would 
read  the  inclosures." 

"  '  Certainly,'  he  said,  and  he  proceeded  to  read  the 
statements  I  had  signed  very  deliberately.    When  he 


5o8  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  IINCOLN 

had  finished  reading  it  he  turned  to  me,  and,  with 
emotion,  he  said  : 

"  •  Are  you,  madam,  the  unhappy  mother  of  this 
wounded  and  imprisoned  son  ? ' 

"  '  I  am,'  I  said. 

"  '  And  do  you  beHeve  he  will  honor  his  parole  if 
I  permit  him  to  take  it  and  go  with  you  ? ' 

•"  I  am  ready,  Mr.  President,  to  peril  my  personal 
liberty  upon  it,'  I  replied. 

"  '  You  shall  have  your  boy,  my  dear  madam,'  he 
said.  '  To  take  him  from  the  ranks  of  rebellion  and 
give  him  to  a  loyal  mother  is  a  better  investment  for 
this  government  than  to  give  him  up  to  its  deadly 
enemies.' 

"  Then,  taking  the  envelope,  he  wrote  with  his 
own  pencil  the  order  which  you  see  upon  it.  As  he 
handed  it  to  me  he  said  : 

"  '  There  !  Give  that  to  the  commanding  officer 
of  Fort  McHenry,  and  you  will  be  permitted  to  take 
your  son  with  you  where  you  will ;  and  God  grant 
he  may  prove  a  great  blessing  to  you  and  an  honor 
to  his  country.'" 

It  need  hardly  be  added,  that  the  young  prisoner 
was  soon  removed  from  the  garrison  ;  and,  under  the 
tender  nursing  of  this  heroic  and  devoted  mother, 
was  able,  after  a  few  months,  to  resume  his  studies 
in  one  of  our  Northern  colleges.  A  beautiful  and 
most  touching  letter,  subsequently  received  at  Fort 


BY  E.    W.   ANDREWS.  5O9 

McHenry  frcm  Mrs.  Winston,  expressed,  in  touch- 
ing terms,  her  gratitude  and  that  of  her  son  to  all 
who  had  rendered  her  aid  in  that  hour  of  her  great 
trial. 

The  National  Cemetery  at  Gettysburg  was  dedi- 
cated on  the  17th  of  November,  1863.  Shortly  be- 
fore the  dedication  was  to  take  place  the  President 
sent  an  invitation  to  my  chief.  General  W.  W. 
Morris,  and  his  staff,  to  join  him  at  Baltimore  and 
accompany  him  on  his  special  train  to  Gettysburg. 
General  Morris  was  sick  at  the  time,  and  requested 
me,  as  his  chief  of  staff,  to  represent  him  on  that 
occasion.  The  General  was  suffering  from  one  of 
the  troubles  which  tried  the  patience  of  Job. 

On  the  day  appointed,  therefore,  I  presented  my- 
self, with  two  other  members  of  the  staff,  to  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  on  his  arrival  at  Baltimore,  and  offered 
the  apology  of  my  chief  for  his  absence. 

After  cordially  greeting  us  and  directing  us  to 
make  ourselves  comfortable,  the  President,  with 
quizzical  expression,  turned  to  Montgomery  Blair 
(then  Postmaster-General),  and  said  : 

"  Blair,  did  you  ever  know  that  fright  has  some- 
times proved  a  sure  cure  for  boils  ?" 

"  No,  Mr.  President.     How  is  that?" 

"  ril    tell    you.     Not    long    ago,    when    Colonel 

,  with  his  cavalry,  was    at    the    front,  and    the 

Rebs  were  making  things  rather  lively  for  us,  the 


5IO  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

colonel  was  ordered  out  on  a  7'cco7tnaissance.  He 
was  troubled  at  the  time  with  a  big  boil  where 
it  made  horseback  riding  decidedly  uncomfortable. 
He  hadn't  gone  more  than  two  or  three  miles 
when  he  declared  he  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer, 
and  dismounted  and  ordered  the  troops  forward 
without  him.  He  had  just  settled  down  to  enjoy 
his  relief  from  change  of  position  when  he  was 
startled  by  the  rapid  reports  of  pistols  and  the 
helter-skelter  approach  of  his  troops  in  full  retreat 
before  a  yelling  rebel  force.  He  forgot  everything 
but  the  yells,  sprang  into  his  saddle,  and  made  capi- 
tal time  over  fences  and  ditches  till  safe  within  the 
lines.  The  pain  from  his  boil  was  gone,  and  the 
boil  too,  and  the  colonel  swore  that  there  was  no 
cure  for  boils  so  sure  as  fright  from  rebel  yells,  and 
that  the  secession  had  rendered  to  loyalty  one  valu- 
able service  at  any  rate." 

During  the  ride  to  Gettysburg  the  President 
placed  every  one  who  approached  him  at  his  ease, 
relating  numerous  stories,  some  of  them  laughable, 
and  others  of  a  character  that  deeply  touched  the 
hearts  of  his  listeners. 

I  remember  well  his  reply  to  a  gentleman  who 
stated  that  his  "  only  son  fell  on  '  Little  Round 
Top'  at  Gettysburg,  and  I  am  going  to  look  at 
the  spot." 

President  Lincoln  replied  : 


BY  E.    IV.   ANDJiElVS. 


5^1 


"  You  have  been  called  upon  to  make  a  terrible 
sacrifice  for  the  Union,  and  a  visit  to  that  spot,  I  fear, 
will  open  your  wounds  afresh.  But  oh  !  my  dear 
sir,  if  we  had  reached  the  end  of  such  sacrifices,  and 
had  nothing  left  for  us  to  do  but  to  place  garlands 
on  the  graves  of  those  who  have  already  fallen,  we 
could  give  thanks  even  amidst  our  tears  ;  but  when 
I  think  of  the  sacrifices  of  life  yet  to  be  offered  and 
the  hearts  and  homes  yet  to  be  made  desolate  be- 
fore this  dreadful  war,  so  wickedly  forced  upon  us, 
is  over,  my  heart  is  like  lead  within  me,  and  I  feel, 
at  times,  like  hiding  in  deep  darkness." 

At  one  of  the  stopping-places  of  the  train,  a  very 
beautiful  little  child,  having  a  bouquet  of  rose-buds 
in  her  hand,  was  lifted  up  to  an  open  window  of 
the  President's  car.  With  a  childish  lisp  she  said  : 
"  Flowrth  for  the  President !  " 

The  President  stepped  to  the  window,  took  the 
rose-buds,  bent  down  and  kissed  the  child,  saying  : 

"  You're  a  sweet  little  rose-bud  yourself.  I  hope 
your  life  will  open  into  perpetual  beauty  and  good- 
ness." 

We  had  taken  with  us  from  Fort  McHenry  the 
Second  United  States  Artillery  band,  one  of  the 
oldest  and  finest  of  the  army. 

After  our  arrival  at  Gettysburg,  two  gentlemen, 
who  represented  themselves  as  members  of  the 
Committee  of  Arrangements,  applied  to  me  for  this 


5^^ 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


band  to  serenade  the  President  and  the  several  Gov- 
ernors of  States  who  had  arrived. 

The  band  was  placed  at  their  disposal  and  the 
serenades  given.  But,  presently,  information  was 
given  me  that,  for  some  reason,  Governor  Seymour, 
of  New  York,  had  been  omitted  in  the  serenades. 
After  ascertaining  that  the  information  was  correct, 
I  resolved  that  this  omission  should  be  corrected, 
whether  it  had  resulted  from  a  mistake  or  a  delib- 
erate intention,  and  that  the  New  York  troops  at 
least,  who  were  a  majority  of  those  present,  and 
were  from  "the  defenses  of  Baltimore,"  should  have 
an  opportunity  to  join  in  a  serenade  of  their  beloved 
Governor,  the  soldiers'  friend. 

Accordingly,  arrangements  having  been  made  for 
the  presence  of  the  band,  and  liberty  having  been 
oriven  to  the  members  of  the  several  commands 
from  "  the  defenses  of  Baltimore"  to  be  present,  at 
about  ten  o'clock  in  the  eveninor  a  crowd  of  thou- 
sands  of  citizens  and  soldiers  had  assembled  in 
front  of  and  around  the  Governor's  quarters. 

The  night  was  clear  and  delightful,  and  the  moon- 
light rested  in  beauty  on  the  town  and  the  sur- 
rounding scenery.  The  band  seemed  inspired  by 
the  scene  and  the  occasion,  and  played  exquisitely 
a  number  of  their  sweetest  and  most  appropriate  airs. 

At  length,  at  a  pause  in  the  music,  the  Governor 
stepped  out  on  the  balcony.      Instantly  cheers  burst 


BY  E.    W.   ANDREWS. 


513 


from  the  vast  multitude,  as  hearty,  long-continued, 
and  soul-stirring  as  ever  found  utterance  from  en- 
thusiastic hearts. 

When  silence  was  restored,  the  Governor,  evi- 
dently laboring  under  deep  emotion,  commenced  an 
address  which  held  enchained  his  great  audience 
from  beginning  to  end.  I  had  listened  to  the  elo- 
quence of  Governor  Seymour  on  other  occasions,  but 
now  he  seemed  to  rise  into  the  empyrean  of  the 
inspired  orator.  Never  were  sentiments  of  loftier 
patriotism  uttered. 

And  when,  with  touching  pathos,  the  Governor 
addressed  the  citizens  and  soldiers  before  him,  and 
told  them  of  the  deep  and  tender  anxiety  felt  for 
them  by  loved  ones  they  had  left  behind,  and  how 
their  prayers  and  the  prayers  of  millions  of  loyal 
hearts  were  constantly  ascending  to  Heaven  for 
their  success  and  safe  return  ;  and  then  spoke  of  the 
thousands  of  cheeks  still  wet  with  falling  tears  for 
husbands,  fathers,  brothers,  sons,  now  sleeping  in 
the  graves  on  yonder  hill-side,  I  doubt  if  a  dry  eye 
could  have  been  found  in  that  vast  throng  of  en- 
thralled listeners.  And  when  he  closed,  for  a  mo- 
ment there  was  profound  silence,  and  not  till  he 
turned  to  leave  the  balcony  did  the  pent-up  feelings 
of  the  deeply  affected  crowd  break  forth  ;  when  in 
the  wildest  cheers,  and  cries  of  "  God  bless  Gov- 
ernor Seymour,"  and  "  Long  live   the   Union,"  the 


33 


514  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

thousands  of  hearts,  "  both  by  tumultuous  rapture 
and  tender  sympathy  swayed,"  found  such  utterance 
as  has  rarely  been  awarded  to  the  eloquence  of  man. 

President  Lincoln,  on  learning  the  next  morning 
of  the  occasion  of  the  demonstration  late  the  night 
before,  said  to  me  : 

"  I  am  glad  Governor  Seymour  was  specially 
honored.  He  deserves  it.  No  man  has  shown 
greater  interest  and  promptness  in  his  co-operation 
with  us.  The  New  York  soldiers  may  well  admire 
and  honor  him." 

The  ceremonies  of  the  dedication  were  imposing 
and  most  interesting.  The  great  procession,  civic 
and  military,  the  splendid  music,  the  impressive  re- 
ligious exercises,  the  great  oration  by  Edward 
Everett  (the  last  public  effort  of  his  life),  the  dedi- 
cation, of  the  ground  chosen,  in  an  address  by  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  of  beauty  and  pathos  never  surpassed 
— all  amidst  the  scenes  where  thousands  but  re- 
cently had  freely  offered  up  their  lives  for  the  life  of 
the  Republic — made  the  day  one  to  be  remembered 
as  long  as  our  Union  shall  last. 

Around  the  platform,  on  which  the  addresses  were 
delivered,  the  military  were  formed  in  hollow  square 
several  ranks  deep.  Inside  of  this  square,  and  but 
a  few  feet  from  the  platform,  I  had  my  position,  and 
thus  enjoyed  the  best  opportunities  to  see  and  hear. 

The   oration   of   Mr.   Everett,  although,  perhaps, 


BY   E.    W.    ANDREWS.  515 

not  equal  in  rhetorical  beauty  and  lofty  eloquence 
to  some  of  his  previous  efforts,  was  rich  in  historical 
instruction  and  glowing  with  patriotic  sentiment,  and 
was  received  with  great  applause. 

At  length,  and  in  the  name  of  the  American  Re- 
public, the  President  came  forward  formally  to  dedi- 
cate the  place,  which  had  drank  so  freely  of  the  life- 
blood  of  her  sons,  as  their  peaceful  resting-place  till 
time  should  be  no  more,  pledging  the  fidelity  and 
honor  and  power  of  the  government  to  its  preser- 
vation for  this  sacred  purpose  while  that  govern- 
ment should  last. 

A  description  of  the  President's  famous  address  is 
needless  ;  it  has  already  become  a  classic  ;  it  is  im- 
possible to  conceive  of  anything  more  beautiful  and 
appropriate  for  the  occasion. 

But  I  may  say  a  word  of  the  appearance  of  the 
orator. 

President  Lincoln  was  so  put  together  physically 
that,  to  him,  gracefulness  of  movement  was  an  im- 
possibility. But  his  awkwardness  was  lost  sight  of 
in  the  interest  which  the  expression  of  his  face  and 
what  he  said  awakened. 

On  this  occasion  he  came  out  before  the  vast  as- 
sembly, and  stepped  slowly  to  the  front  of  the  plat- 
form, with  his  hands  clasped  before  him,  his  natural 
sadness  of  expression  deepened,  his  head  bent  for- 
ward, and  his  eyes  cast  to  the  ground. 


ri6  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  this  attitude  he  stood  for  a  few  seconds,  silent, 
as  if  communing  with  his  own  thoughts  ;  and  when 
he  began  to  speak,  and  throughout  his  entire  ad- 
dress, his  manner  indicated  no  consciousness  of  the 
presence  of  tens  of  thousands  hanging  on  his  Hps, 
but  rather  of  one  who,  hke  the  prophet  of  old,  was 
overmastered  by  some  unseen  spirit  of  the  scene, 
and  passively  gave  utterance  to  the  memories,  the 
feelings,  the  counsels  and  the  prophecies  with  which 
he  was  inspired. 

In  his  whole  appearance,  as  well  as  in  his  wonder- 
ful utterances,  there  was  such  evidence  of  a  wisdom 
and  purity  and  benevolence  and  moral  grandeur, 
higher  and  beyond  the  reach  of  ordinary  men,  that 
the  great  assembly  listened  almost  awe-struck  as  to 
a  voice  from  the  divine  oracle. 

I  was  still  on  duty  in  "  the  defenses  of  Balti- 
more"  when  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1864  oc- 
curred. I  had  been  a  life-long  Democrat,  and  I 
favored  the  election  of  General  McClellan,  the  can- 
didate of  my  party. 

One  evening  in  September,  1864,  I  was  invited  by 
a  few  friends  to  go  with  them  to  a  Democratic  meet- 
ing, and  listen  to  a  distinguished  orator  who  was  to 
advocate  the  claims  of  McClellan.  As  I  could  not 
well  refuse,  I  agreed  to  go  for  a  few  minutes  only. 
To  my  surprise  and  annoyance,  I  was  called  on  by 
the  audience  for  a  speech,  and  the  calls  were  so  per- 


BY  E.    W.    ANDREWS.  517 

sistent  that  I  was  placed  in  a  most  embarrassing 
position.  Forced  to  say  something,  I  contented  my- 
self with  a  brief  expression  of  my  high  regard  for 
McClellan  as  a  soldier,  and  a  statement  of  my  in- 
tention to  vote  for  him.  I  made  no  reference  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  soon  left  the  hall. 

Next  day  an  order  came  from  Secretary  Stanton 
directinor  me  to  be  mustered  out  of  the  service.  No 
reason  was  assigned,  nor  opportunity  given  for  de- 
fense. As  I  was  and  had  always  been  an  unwavering 
Union  man,  as  I  had  a  brother  and  three  sons  in  the 
military  service  of  the  Union,  and  as  I  had  learned 
that  my  action  at  the  meeting  when  reported  to 
Secretary  Stanton  had  made  him  very  angry  and 
caused  him  to  utter  severe  threats  against  me,  I 
determined  to  go,  and  did  go,  to  Washington  to 
know  the  reason  of  this  attempt  to  disgrace  me.  As 
no  other  pretext  could  be  given  for  such  action,  I 
resolved  to  appeal  to  the  President. 

I  gave  my  papers  setting  forth  these  facts  into  the 
hands  of  a  personal  friend,  a  Republican  member 
of  Congress,  with  the  request  that  he  would  ask 
Mr.  Lincoln  whether  the  revocation  of  my  commis- 
sion was  by  his  order,  knowledge  or  consent.  He 
did  so. 

The  President  immediately  replied  :  "  I  know  noth- 
ing about  it.  Of  course  Stanton  does  a  thousand 
things   in   his   official   character  which    I    can   know 


•eiS  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

nothing  about,  and  which  it  is  not  necessary  that  I 
should  know  anything  about." 

Having  heard  the  case,  he  then  added  :  "  Well, 
that's  no  reason.  Andrews  has  as  good  a  right  to 
hold  on  to  his  Democracy,  if  he  chooses,  as  Stanton 
had  to  throw  his  overboard.  If  I  should  muster  out 
all  my  generals  who  avow  themselves  Democrats  there 
would  be  a  sad  thinning  out  of  commanding  officers 
in  the  army.  No  ! "  he  continued,  "when  the  military 
duties  of  a  soldier  are  fully  and  faithfully  performed, 
he  can  manage  his  politics  in  his  own  way  ;  we've 
no  more  to  do  with  them  than  with  his  religion.  Tell 
this  officer  he  can  return  to  his  post,  and  if  there  is 
no  other  or  better  reason  for  the  order  of  Stanton 
than  the  one  he  suspects,  it  shall  do  him  no  harm  ; 
the  commission  he  holds  will  remain  as  good  as  new. 
Supporting  General  McClellan  for  the  Presidency 
is  no  violation  of  army  regulations,  and  as  a  question 
of  taste  of  choosing  between  him  and  me,  well,  I'm 
the  longest,  but  he's  better  looking." 

And  so  I  resumed  my  service,  and  was  never 
afterward  molested  by  the  Secretary  of  War. 

E.  W.  ANDREWS. 


XXX. 

James  C.  Welling. 

THE  Emancipation  Proclamation  is  the  most 
sis^nal  fact  in  the  administration  of  President 
Lincoln.  It  marks,  indeed,  the  sharp  and  abrupt 
beo-inninof  of  "  the  Great  Divide,"  which,  since  the 
upheaval  produced  by  the  late  ci\il  war,  has  sepa- 
rated the  polity  and  politics  of  the  ante-bellum  period 
from  the  polity  and  politics  of  the  post-bellum  era. 
No  other  act  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  has  Keen  so  warmly 
praised  on  the  one  hand,  or  so  warmly  denounced 
on  the  other  ;  and  perhaps  it  has  sometimes  been 
equally  misunderstood,  in  its  real  nature  and  bear- 
ing, by  those  who  have  praised  it  and  those  who 
have  denounced  it.  The  domestic  institution  against 
which  it  was  leveled  having  now  passed  as  finally 
into  the  domain  of  history  as  the  slavery  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  it  would  seem  that  the  time  has  come 
when  we  can  review  this  act  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  in  the 
calm  liofht  of  reason,  without  serious  disturbance 
from  the  illusions  of  fancy  or  the  distortions  of 
prejudice. 

In   order  to  give  precision  and  definiteness  to  the 


520  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

inquiry  here  taken,  it  seems  necessary,  at  the  thresh- 
old, to  distinguish  the  true  purport  and  operation  of 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation  from  some  things 
with  which  it  is  often  confounded  in  popular  speech. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is  proper  to  say  that  the  procla- 
mation, in  its  inception  and  in  its  motive,  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  employment  of  slaves  as  laborers 
in  the  army.  Fugitive  slaves  were  so  employed 
long  before  the  utterance  of  such  a  manifesto  had 
been  contemplated,  or  the  thought  of  it  tolerated  by 
the  President.  Just  as  little  was  the  proclamation  a 
necessary  condition  precedent  to  the  enlistment  of 
fugitive  slaves  as  soldiers  in  the  army.  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  averse  to  the  employment  of  negroes  as  soldiers 
at  the  time  he  issued  the  preliminary  proclamation 
of  September  22,  1862,  and  he  remained  in  this 
state  of  mind  until  the  final  edict  was  issued  on  the 
first  of  January  following.  It  was  not  until  the  20th 
of  January,  1863,  that  Governor  Andrew,  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, received  permission  to  make  an  experi- 
ment in  this  direction. 

We  learn  from  the  diary  of  Mr.  Secretary  Chase, 
that  at  a  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  held  on  the  21st  of 
July,  1862,  the  President  "determined  to  take  some 
definite  steps  in  respect  to  military  action  and 
slavery."  A  letter  from  General  Hunter  having 
been  submitted,  in  which  he  asked  for  authority  to 
enlist  "  all  loyal  persons,  without   reference  to  com- 


BY  JAMES  C.   WELLING.  52  I 

plexion,"  it  appears  that  Messrs.  Stanton,  Seward 
and  Chase  advocated  the  proposition,  and  no  one  in 
the  Cabinet  spoke  against  it ;  but,  adds  Mr.  Chase, 
"  the  President  expressed  himself  as  averse  to  arm- 
ing negroes."  On  the  next  day  the  question  of 
arming  slaves  was  again  brought  up,  and  Mr.  Chase 
"  advocated  it  warmly  ;  "  but  the  President  was  still 
unwilling  to  adopt  this  measure,  and  proposed  sim- 
ply to  issue  a  proclamation  based  on  the  Confiscation 
act  of  July  17,  1862,  "calling  on  the  States  to  return 
to  their  alleo^iance,  and  warningf  the  rebels  that  the 
provisions  of  that  act  would  have  full  force  at  the 
expiration  of  sixty  days  ;  adding,  on  his  own  part,  a 
declaration  of  his  intention  to  renew  at  the  next 
session  of  Congress  his  recommendation  of  compen- 
sation to  States  adopting  the  gradual  abolishment 
of  slavery,  and  proclaiming  the  emancipation  of  all 
slaves  within  States  remaining  in  insurrection  on  the 
ist  of  January.  1863."*  So  the  first  intimation 
made  to  the  Cabinet  of  a  purpose  to  proclaim  the 
liberation  of  slaves  in  the  insurgent  States,  was 
made  in  connection  with  the  President's  avowed 
opposition  to  the  arming  of  negroes. 

Writing  from  memory,  Mr.  Secretary  Welles 
states,  in  his  History  of  Emancipation,  that  the 
President,  "  early  in  August  "—he  thinks  it  was  the 
2d  of  August — submitted  to  the  Cabinet  "the  rough 

*  Warden's  Life  of  Chase,  p.  440. 


522  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

draft "  of  a  proclamation  to  emancipate,  after  a  cer- 
tain day,  all  slaves  in  States  which  should  then  be 
in  rebellion,  but  that  Mr.  Seward  argued  against  the 
promulgation  of  such  a  paper  at  that  time,  "  because 
it  would  be  received  and  considered  as  a  despair- 
ing cry — a  shriek  from  and  for  the  administration 
rather  than  for  freedom."  *  He  further  records 
that  the  President,  impressed  with  this  view,  closed 
his  portfolio,  and  did  not  recur  to  the  subject  until 
after  the  battle  of  Antietam,  which  was  fought  on 
the  17th  of  September. 

Writing  in  his  diary  under  date  of  August  3d,  but 
referring,  doubtless,  to  the  discussions  held  in  the 
Cabinet  on  the  previous  day,*!*  Mr.  Chase  records 
that,  "  for  the  tenth  or  twentieth  time,"  he  urged  the 
adoption  of  a  vigorous  policy  against  slavery  in  the 
seceded  States  by  "assuring  the  blacks  of  freedom 
on  condition  of  loyalty,  and  by  organizing  the  best 
of  them  in  companies  and  regiments."  He  further 
records  that  Mr.  Seward  "  expressed  himself  in  favor 
of  any  measures  which  could  be  carried  into  effect 
without  proclamation,  and  the  President  said  that  he 
was  pretty  well  cured  of  objection  to  any  measure, 
except  want  of  adaptedness  to  put  down  the  rebel- 
lion,  but  did   not  seem   satisfied  that  the  time  had 

*  Galaxy,  December,  1872,  p.  845. 

f  The  meeting  was  held  on  a  Saturday,  according  to  Mr.  Welles,  and  the 
3d  of  August,  1862,  was  a  Sunday. 


BY  JAMES   C.    WELLING.  ^23 

come  for  the  adoption  of  such  a  plan  as  I  had  pro- 

On  the  2 2d  of  August,  just  one  month  after  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  first  opened  the  subject  of  emancipation 
to  his  Cabinet,  he  proceeded  to  take  the  whole  coun- 
try into  his  confidence  on  the  relations  of  slavery  to 
the  war.  On  that  day  he  wrote  "  the  Greeley  Let- 
ter " — a  letter  written  in  reply  to  an  earnest  and  im- 
portunate appeal  in  which,  assuming  to  utter  the 
"  Prayer  of  Twenty  Millions,"  Mr.  Greeley  had 
called  on  the  President,  with  much  truculence  of 
speech,  to  issue  a  proclamation  of  freedom  to  all 
slaves  in  the  Confederate  States.  As  this  letter  was 
the  first  as  well  as  the  most  pithy  and  syllogistic 
public  discussion  w'hich  the  President  ever  gave  to 
the  subject  in  hand,  it  seems  proper  not  only  to  in- 
sert it  here  in  its  entirety,  but,  as  a  matter  of  literary 
curiosity,  to  reproduce  it  in  its  original  form.  The 
following  is  a  fac-simile  of  the  letter : 

t^yrtry  c^?^-^    t^  o^   (^^-^^f  fh-^n^-^  a*~i><.  ^I'via^  c^'^^jd^^^ZZIu 

*  Warden's  Life  of  Chase,  p.  446. 


524  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

J  (A^^nJZ^  ^SI^>^  i^^  l4^fMJa%^»    J hrs'^J^p^A^-'V^j  i^T" 

y  •>  .I^^L-^-l-         'J J'JJII       iTlilHII'     "I      ft'st'^'-'^^  *'      <^*"*^ 


g^^  yl^r..^^,   ^<»^    /»v^  y^  AS'^^-' 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  525 

fU^VxMr^   f^y^yC^^f^  /^Cftx>«^  ^^^  f^^&z,^^  ef  ^^2ru,^..^^^ct,^ 

a^y^M^  f-TK^SO  J  ypTi-^tJS^     ^^/^J-«^*-»^  >^,CA**-«^  4/ 
/^V>>-<^-4^     >'V*^     /.^^^    ^^.^^/^^WL-^v'  ;&vsn^  .y7^.%-r  C^V-C-^ 


This  letter  appeared  for  the  first  time  in  the  7V<2- 
tional  Intelligencer  of  August  23,  1862.* 

*  The  letter  came  into  my  hands  from  the  fact  that  I  was  one  of  the  editors 


526 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


In  his  interview  with  the  representatives  of  the 
Border  States,  held  on  the  loth  of  March,  1862,  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  said  that,  as  long  as  he  remained  Presi- 
dent, the  people  of  Maryland  (and  therefore  of  the 
other  Border  States)  had  nothing  to  fear  for  their 
peculiar  domestic  institution  "either  by  direct  action 
of  the  government  or  by  indirect  action,  as  through 
the  emancipation  of  slaves  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia or  the  confiscation  of  Southern  property"  in 
slaves.  In  that  same  interview,  while  making  a  con- 
fidential avowal  of  these  friendly  sentiments,  he  had 
protested  against  their  public  announcement  at  that 
juncture,  on  the  ground  that  "  it  would  force  him 
into  a  quarrel  with  *  the  Greeley  faction '  before  the 
proper  time."  He  twice  intimated  that  such  a  quar- 
rel was  impending,  but  added  that  "  he  did  not  wish 
to  encounter  it  before  the  proper  time,  nor  at  all  if  it 
could  be  avoided."  * 

It  was  no  more  than  natural,  therefore,  that  these 
Representatives,  on  the  appearance  of  "the  Greeley 
Letter,"  should  have  read  between  its  lines  a  sup- 

of  the  Intelligencer,  to  which  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  it  for  publication.  The  omitted 
passage—"  Broken  eggs  can  never  be  mended,  and  the  longer  the  breaking 
proceeds  the  more  will  be  broken  " — was  erased,  with  some  reluctance,  by  the 
President,  on  the  representation,  made  to  him  by  the  editors,  that  it  seemed 
somewhat  exceptionable,  on  rhetorical  grounds,  in  a  paper  of  such  dignity. 
But  it  can  do  no  harm,  at  this  late  day,  to  reveal  the  homely  similitude  by 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  originally  purposed  to  reinforce  his  political  warnings. 
*  McPherson,  Political  Historyy  p.  211. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLIXG.  527 

posed  indication  of  the  President's  purpose  to  break 
with  "  the  Greeley  faction  "  at  an  early  day.  They 
believed  that  the  President,  at  the  bottom  of  his 
heart,  was  in  sympathy  with  them,  and  with  their 
theory  of  the  war.  They  were  not  entirely  dis- 
abused of  this  impression  even  after  his  interview 
with  them  on  the  12th  of  July,  when  he  made  a  last 
ineffectual  appeal  to  them  in  behalf  of  "  emancipa- 
tion with  compensation  to  loyal  owners,"  and  when  he 
reinforced  his  appeal  by  urging  that  the  acceptance 
of  such  a  policy  would  help  to  relieve  him  from  "  the 
pressure  "  for  military  emancipation  at  the  South. 

The  Representatives  from  the  Border  States  were 
strengthened  in  their  delusion  by  a  corresponding 
delusion  of  the  Radical  Republicans,'^*  who  weakly 
supposed  the  President  at  this  juncture  to  be  a  nose 
of  wax  in  the  hands  of  what  they  called  "  the  pro- 
slavery  faction."  As  late  as  the  loth  of  September, 
ten  days  before  the  preliminary  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation  was  issued,  we  find  Mr.  Chase  lament- 
ing in  his  diary  that  the  President  "  has  yielded  so 
much  to  Border  State  and  negrophobic  counsels  that 
he  now  finds  it  difficult  to  arrest  his  own  descent  to 
the   most  fatal  concessions."  f     And   this   impatient 

*  The  word  "Radical"  throughout  this  paper  is  used  historically,  and  not 
in  any  invidious  sense.  It  is  the  term  by  which  Mr.  Lincoln  called  the  "  Stal- 
warts" of  that  day,  and  by  which  they  called  themselves. 

f  Warden's  Life  of  Chase,  p.  471. 


528  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

insistence  of  his  Radical  friends  was  repaid  by  the 
President  with  gibes  and  sneers,  as  when,  for  in- 
stance, on  this  same  loth  of  September,  he  taunted 
Mr.  Chase  with  "the  ill-timed  jest"  that  some  one 
had  proposed,  in  view  of  the  Confederate  invasion 
of  Pennsylvania,  which  was  then  believed  to  be  im- 
pending, that  he  (the  President)  should  issue  a  proc- 
lamation "freeing  all  apprentices  in  that  State" — on 
the  ground  of  military  necessity  ! 

It  was  with  a  like  festive  humor  that,  on  the  13th 
of  September,  he  parried  the  arguments  of  the  Chi- 
cago clergymen  who  had  come  to  Washington  in 
order  to  press  for  a  proclamation  of  freedom.  To 
their  representation  that  the  recent  military  disasters 
"were  tokens  of  divine  displeasure,  calling  for  new 
and  advanced  action  on  the  part  of  the  President," 
he  shrewdly  replied  that,  if  it  was  probable  that  God 
would  reveal  his  will  to  others  on  a  point  so  intimate- 
ly connected  with  the  President's  duty,  it  might  be 
supposed  that  he  would  reveal  it  directly  to  the  Pres- 
ident himself.  To  the  argument  that  a  proclamation 
of  freedom  would  summon  additional  laborers  to  help 
the  army,  he  replied  by  asking  what  reason  there  was 
to  suppose  that  such  a  proclamation  would  have  more 
effect  than  the  late  law  enacted  by  Congress  to  this 
end ;  and,  if  they  should  come  in  multitudes,  how,  he 
asked,  could  they  all  be  fed  ?  To  the  suggestion  that 
the  able-bodied  among  them  might  be  armed  to  fight 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  529 

for  the  Union,  he  ironically  replied,  "  If  we  were  to 
arm  them,  I  fear  that  in  a  few  weeks  the  arms  would 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  rebels."  To  the  plea  that 
emancipation  would  give  a  holy  motive  and  a  sacred 
object  to  the  war,  he  replied  by  saying  that  "  we 
already  had  an  important  principle  to  rally  and  unite 
the  people,  in  the  fact  that  constitutional  government 
was  at  stake — a  fundamental  idea  going  down  about 
as  deep  as  anything." 

It  is  true  that  at  the  close  of  his  interview  the  Pres- 
ident assured  the  Chicago  committee  that  he  had 
not  "decided  against  a  proclamation  of  liberty  to 
slaves,"  and  that  "  the  subject  was  on  his  mind  by 
day  and  night  more  than  any  other;"  but  this  state- 
ment only  served  to  bring  into  bold  relief  the  little 
faith  he  then  seemed  to  have  in  a  measure  for  which, 
considered  as  a  means  to  the  ends  proposed  by  its 
patrons,  he  could,  with  all  his  meditations,  find  no 
good  and  sufficient  reasons.  It  is  true  that,  on  the 
preceding  22A  of  July,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  said  that  he 
was  pretty  well  cured  of  objection  to  any  measure 
against  slavery  except  "want  of  adaptedness  to  put 
down  the  rebellion;"  and  now,  too,  he  publicly  an- 
nounced that  he  "did  not  want  to  issue  a  document 
which  the  whole  world  would  see  must  necessarily  be 
inoperative,  like  the  Pope's  bull  against  the  comet." 
It  is  true  that  he  had  previously  sketched  "  the  rough 
draft "  of  an  emancipation  proclamation,  but  he  had 

34 


530  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

put  it  back  in  his  portfolio  on  the  suggestion  of  Mr. 
Seward  that  practical  measures  against  slavery  could 
be  carried  into  effect  "without  proclamation."  It  is 
true  that  only  a  few  days  previously  ("when  the  rebel 
army  was  at  Frederick  "  ■^■)  he  had  registered  a  vow 
in  heaven  that  he  would  issue  a  proclamation  of 
emancipation  so  soon  as  the  Confederates  should  be 
driven  out  of  Maryland ;  but  this  was  the  conduct 
either  of  a  man  who,  in  a  perplexing  state  of  incer- 
titude, resolves  his  doubts  by  "  throwing  a  lot  in  the 
lap"  and  leaving  "the  whole  disposing  thereof  to  be 
of  the  Lord,"  or,  as  I  prefer  to  believe,  it  was  that 
prudent  and  reverent  waiting  on  Providence  by  which 
the  President  sought  to  guard  against  the  danger  of 
identifying  the  proclamation  in  the  popular  mind  with 
a  panic  cry  of  despair,  in  which  latter  case  the  hesi- 
tation of  Mr.  Lincoln  only  serves  to  set  in  a  stronger 
light  the  significant  fact  that  other  than  considera- 
tions of  military  necessity  were  held  to  dominate  the 
situation,  for,  if  they  alone  had  been  prevalent,  the 
proclamation  could  never  have  come  more  appropri- 
ately than  when  the  military  need  was  greatest. 

The  proximate  and  procuring  cause  of  the  proc- 
lamation, as  I  conceive,  is  not  far  to  seek.  It  was 
issued  primarily  and  chiefly  as  a  political  necessity, 
and  took  on  the  character  of  a  military  necessity  only 
because  the  President  had  been  brought  to  believe 

*  September  6th. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  53 1 

that  if  he  did  not  keep  the  Radical  portion  of  his 
party  at  his  back  he  could  not  long  be  sure  of  keep- 
ing an  army  at  the  front.  He  had  begun  the  conduct 
of  the  war  on  the  theory  that  it  was  waged  for  the 
restoration  of  the  Union  under  the  Constitution  as  it 
was  at  the  outbreak  of  the  secession  movement.  He 
sedulously  labored  to  keep  the  war  in  this  line  of  di- 
rection. He  publicly  deprecated  its  degeneration  into 
a  remorseless  revolutionary  struggle.  He  cultivated 
every  available  alliance  with  the  Union  men  of  the 
Border  States.  He  sympathized  with  them  in  their 
loyalty,  and  in  the  political  theory  on  which  it  was 
placed.  But  the  most  active  and  energetic  wing  of 
the  Republican  Party  had  become,  as  the  war  waxed 
hotter,  more  and  more  hostile  to  this  "  Border  State 
theory  of  the  war,"  until,  in  the  end,  its  fiery  and  im- 
petuous leaders  did  not  hesitate  to  threaten  him  with 
repudiation  as  a  political  chief,  and  even  began  in 
some  cases  to  hint  the  expediency  of  withholding 
supplies  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  unless  the 
President  should  remove  "  pro -slavery  generals" 
from  the  command  of  our  armies,  and  adopt  an 
avowedly  antislavery  policy  in  the  future  conduct  of 
the  war.  Thus  placed  between  two  stools,  and  liable 
between  them  to  fall  to  the  ground,  he  determined 
at  last  to  plant  himself  firmly  on  the  stool  which 
promised  the  surest  and  safest  support. 

I  am  able  to  state  with  confidence  that  Mr.  Lin- 


532  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

coin  gave  this  explanation  of  his  changed  policy  a 
few  days  after  the  preliminary  proclamation  of  Sep- 
tember 22d  had  been  issued.  The  Hon.  Edward 
Stanly,  the  Military  Governor  of  North  Carolina, 
immediately  on  receiving  a  copy  of  that  paper,  has- 
tened to  Washington  for  the  purpose  of  seeking  an 
authentic  and  candid  explanation  of  the  grounds  on 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  based  such  a  sudden  and 
grave  departure  from  the  previous  theory  of  the  war. 
Mr.  Stanly  had  accepted  the  post  of  Military  Gover- 
nor of  North  Carolina  at  a  great  personal  sacrifice, 
and  with  a  distinct  understanding  that  the  war  was 
to  be  prosecuted  on  the  same  constitutional  theory 
which  had  presided  over  its  inception  by  the  Federal 
Government,  and  hence  the  proclamation  not  only 
took  him  by  surprise,  but  seemed  to  him  an  act  of 
perfidy.  In  this  view  he  hastily  abandoned  his  post, 
and  came  to  throw  up  his  commission  and  return  to 
California,  where  he  had  previously  resided.  Before 
doine  so  he  soueht  an  audience  with  the  President — 
in  fact,  held  several  interviews  with  him — on  the  sub- 
ject, and  knowing  that,  as  a  public  journalist,  I  was 
deeply  interested  in  the  matter,  he  came  to  report  to 
me  the  substance  of  the  President's  communications. 
That  substance  was  recorded  in  my  diary  as  follows  : 

*^ Septe7Jtber  2'jth. — Had  a  call  at  the  hitclligcncer 
office  from  the  Honorable  Edward  Stanly,  Military 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  533 

Governor  of  North  Carolina.  In  a  long  and  inter- 
esting conversation  Mr.  Stanly  related  to  me  the 
substance  of  several  interviews  which  he  had  had 
with  the  President  respecting  the  Proclamation  of 
Freedom.  Mr.  Stanly  said  that  the  President  had 
stated  to  him  that  the  proclamation  had  become  a 
civil  necessity  to  prevent  the  Radicals  from  openly 
embarrassing  the  Qfovernment  in  the  conduct  of  the 
war.  The  President  expressed  the  belief  that,  with- 
out the  proclamation  for  which  they  had  been  clam- 
oring, the  Radicals  would  take  the  extreme  step  in 
Congress  of  withholding  supplies  for  carrying  on  the 
war — leaving  the  whole  land  in  anarchy.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln said  that  he  had  prayed  to  the  Almighty  to 
save  him  from  this  necessity,  adopting  the  very 
language  of  our  Saviour,  'If  it  be  possible,  let  this 
cup  pass  from  me,'  but  the  prayer  had  not  been 
answered." 

As  this  frank  admission,  in  the  length  and  breadth 
here  given  to  it,  will  doubtless  wear  an  air  of  novelty 
to  many  readers,  and  may  excite  suspicions  in  some 
minds  with  regard  to  the  accuracy  of  my  chronicle, 
the  faithfulness  of  Mr.  Stanly's  report,  or  the  sincer- 
ity of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  making  his  statements,  it  seems 
proper  to  vindicate  the  authenticity  of  the  record  by 
an  appeal  to  other  facts  which  abundantly  corrobo- 
rate its  truth. 


534  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

In  his  interview  with  the  Border  State  Represent- 
atives on  the  1 2th  of  July,  1862,  the  President  had 
implored  them  to  relieve  him  from  the  Radical 
"pressure"  by  espousing,  with  him,  the  policy  of 
emancipation  with  compensation.  This  "  pressure," 
he  said,  was  even  then  "  threatening  a  division  among 
those  who,  united,  are  none  too  strong."  On  the 
next  day,  after  the  failure  of  this  interview  to  make 
any  impression  on  the  Border  State  Representatives, 
the  President,  for  the  first  time,  opened  the  subject 
of  military  emancipation  in  a  private  conversation 
with  two  members  of  his  Cabinet — Mr.  Seward  and 
Mr.  Welles.  The  President  then  said,  as  Mr.  Welles 
reports,  that  emancipation  "was  forced  upon  him  as 
a  necessity,"  "  was  thrust  at  him  from  various  quar- 
ters," but  "  had  been  driven  home  to  him  by  the  con- 
ference of  the  preceding  day."^  On  the  28th  of  the 
same  month  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Cuthbert  Bullitt,  of 
New  Orleans,  that  it  was  "  a  military  necessity  to 
have  men  and  money,  and  we  cannot  get  either  in 
siifficient  numbers  or  amount  if  we  keep  from  or  drive 
from  02ir  lines  slaves  coming  to  themT^  Even  at 
this  date,  when  the  enlistment  of  colored  troops  was 
not  meditated,  it  will  be  seen  that  Mr.  Lincoln  con- 
fessed himself  obliged  to  make  concessions  to  the 
antislavery  sentiment  of  his  party  in  order  to  pro- 

*  Galaxy,  December,  1872,  p.  843. 

f  Raymond,  Life  and  State  Papers  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  p.  484. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  535 

cure  supplies  of  men  and  money,  and  thus  early  it 
was  that,  as  a  wary  political  pilot,  he  kept  his 
weather  eye  fixed  on  the  thickening  clouds  that  rose 
higher  and  higher  in  the  Northern  sky — clouds  full 
of  muttered  wrath  against  him  so  long  as  he  seemed 
to  hold  in  leash  the  thunderbolt  they  were  ready  to 
discharge  on  slaver3\  For  he  prefaced  this  state- 
ment by  saying  that  what  he  did  and  what  he  omitted 
about  slaves  "was  done  and  omitted  on  the  same 
military  necessity  " — the  necessity  of  having  men  and 
money  to  carry  on  the  war.  And  the  President's 
apprehensions  were  not  entirely  groundless  on  this 
score.  As  early  as  the  month  of  May,  1862,  Gov- 
ernor Andrew,  of  Massachusetts,  had  not  hesitated 
to  say  "  in  writing"  that  the  people  of  that  State  had 
come  to  "  feel  it  a  heavy  draft  on  their  patriotism  " 
that  they  should  be  asked  "to  help  fight  rebels" 
without  being  allowed  "  to  fire  on  the  enemy's  maga- 
zine." And,  in  the  very  act  of  submitting  the  pre- 
liminary proclamation  of  September  22d  to  the  con- 
sideration of  his  Cabinet,  the  President  avowed  that 
it  was  issued  under  the  menacing  frown  of  this 
"  pressure  ; "  for  when  Mr.  Montgomery  Blair  ar- 
gued against  the  timeliness  of  the  measure,  on  the 
ground  that  it  might  "  put  the  patriotic  element  of 
the  Border  States  in  jeopardy,"  and  even  "  carry 
those  States  over  to  the  secessionists,"  Mr.  Lincoln 
replied  that  "  the  difficulty  was  as  great  7iot  to  act  as 


r-id  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  act  "  * — that  is,  by  not  acting  in  the  way  proposed 
he  feared  a  disaffection  among  his  party  friends  at 
the  North  which  would  be  as  dangerous  to  the  Union 
as  the  disaffection  Hkely  to  be  produced  by  the 
proclamation  among  thq  Unionists  of  the  Border 
States.  The  President  remembered  that  the  Massa- 
chusetts Republican  Convention,  held  less  than  two 
weeks  before,  had  omitted  to  pass  a  vote  of  confi- 
dence in  his  administration,  but  had  voted  that 
"  slavery  should  be  exterminated."  Even  the  Radi- 
cal members  of  his  own  Cabinet  had  come  to  think 
of  him  and  to  speak  of  him  as  a  political  recreant. 
On  the  1 2th  of  September,  ten  days  before  the  pre- 
liminary edict  was  issued,  Mr.  Chase  wrote  of  him  as 
follows  :  "  He  has  already  separated  himself  from  the 
great  body  of  the  party  which  elected  him,  distrusts 
most  those  who  represent  its  spirit,  and  waits — for 

what?"t 

The   proclamation  when  it  came    put  an  end,  of 

course,  to  all  this  "  pressure."  Indeed,  Mr.  Chase 
admitted,  when  the  President  read  the  paper  to  his 
Cabinet,  that  it  went  "a  step  further  than  he  had 
ever  proposed."  He  had  proposed  that  each  com- 
mander of  a  department  at  the  South  should  be 
instructed  to  proclaim  emancipation  within  his  dis- 
trict, assuring   the  blacks  of    freedom    on   condition 


*  Galaxy,  December,  1872,  p.  847. 
f  Warden's  Life  of  Chase,  p.  471. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  537 

of  loyalty,  and  organizing  the  best  of  them  in  com- 
panies and  regiments.*  But  Mr.  Lincohi  promised 
and  threatened  that,  on  the  ist  of  January,  1863, 
"all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State,  or 
designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof 
should  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United 
States,  should  be  then,  thenceforward,  and  forever 
free " — a  declaration  which  promised  the  largesse 
of  freedom  alike  to  the  "loyal  blacks"  who  escaped 
within  our  lines,  and  to  the  slaves  who  voluntarily 
stood  by  their  masters  because  they  were  unwill- 
ing to  strike  a  blow  for  their  own  liberty. 

If  the  proclamation  disarmed  for  a  time  the  bitter 
opposition  of  the  Radicals,  its  other  political  and 
practical  effects  were  such  as  abundantly  justified 
the  long  hesitation  of  the  President  in  issuing  it. 
It  precipitated  a  crisis  which  threatened  to  divide 
the  friends  of  the  Union  at  the  North  by  a  new  line 
of  cleavage.  If  Governor  Andrew  and  his  political 
associates  had  previously  found  it  a  "heavy  draft" 
on  their  patriotism  to  sustain  the  President  in  his 
constitutional  theory  of  the  war,  it  now  became  a 
heavy  draft  on  the  patriotism  of  conservative  Re- 
publicans and  of  war  Democrats  to  sustain  him  in 
his  new  departure.  New  elective  affinities  suddenly 
struck  through  the  seething  mass  of  public  opinion, 
and  led    to   new   political   formations.      A    spirit  of 

*  Warden's  Life  of  Chase,  p.  440,  446. 


538  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

political  giddiness  and  revolt  was  shed  upon  the 
people  in  the  loyal  States.  In  the  ensuing  autum- 
nal election  the  Republican  Party  was  defeated  in 
great  States  like  New  York,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and 
Illinois.  When  Congress  met  in  December  the 
political  signs  of  the  times  were  full  of  portents. 
There  was  "  uneasiness  in  the  popular  mind."  The 
attitude  of  Europe  toward  us  was  "  cold  and  men- 
acing" where  it  did  not  express  itself  "in  accents 
of  pity"  for  a  people  "too  blind  to  surrender  a 
hopeless  cause."  These  are  not  my  words,  but  the 
words  of  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  when,  one  year  after- 
ward, he  v/as  called  to  review  the  political,  civil, 
and  military  situation  created  by  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation.  The  utterance  of  the  proclamation, 
he  said,  "was  followed  by  dark  and  doubtful 
days."  ^' 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  united  the  South, 
where,  however,  there  was  but  little  room  for  further 
consolidation.  Leading  citizens  in  that  section  who 
had  previously  stood  aloof  from  the  war,  so  long  as 
it  was  conducted  at  the  South  in  the  name  of  seces- 
sion against  the  Constitutional  Government  to 
Washington,  now  hastened  to  give  in  their  adhesion 
to  the  Richmond  authorities.  In  his  message  of 
December,  1861,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  said  that  "in  con- 
sidering the  policy  to    be  adopted    for  suppressing 

*  Raymond,  Life  and  State  Papers  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  p.  454. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  539 

the  insurrection,"  he  had  been  "  anxious  and  careful 
that  the  inevitable  conflict  for  this  purpose  should 
not  degenerate  into  a  violent  and  remorseless  revo- 
lutionary struggle.  *  ^'  *  All  indispensable  means," 
he  added,  "must  be  employed,"  but  "we  should  not 
be  in  haste  to  determine  that  radical  and  extreme 
measures,  which  may  reach  the  loyal  as  well  as  dis- 
loyal, are  indispensable."  The  Emancipation  Proc- 
lamation was  accepted  by  these  halting  Unionists  at 
the  South  as  an  indication  that  the  time  for  "  radical 
and  extreme  measures  "  had  come  in  the  judgment 
of  the  President,  and  they  acted  accordingly.  "  For 
a  time,"  says  Mr.  Welles,  the  proclamation  "  failed 
to  strengthen  the  administration  in  any  section."  ^' 

Its  effect  on  the  slaves  at  the  South  was  such  as 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  predicted  in  his  interview  with  the 
Chicago  deputation.  Sanguine  advocates  of  eman- 
cipation by  edict  of  the  President  had  risked  the 
confident  prophecy  that  it  would  be  followed  by  a 
simultaneous  exodus  of  negroes  from  the  South,  and 
that  such  an  exodus  would  end  the  war  by  a  coup  dc 
theatre.  As  one  of  them  wrote  :  "  The  plow  would 
stand  still  in  the  furrow,  the  ripened  grain  would  re- 
main unharvested,  the  cows  would  not  be  milked, 
the  dinners  would  not  be  cooked,  but  one  universal 
hallelujah  of  glory  to  God,  echoed  from  every  valley 
and  hill-top   of   rebeldom,  would  sound  the   speedy 

*  Galaxy,  December,  1S72,  p.  84S. 


rAO  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

doom  of  treason."*    This  bubble  was  pricked  by  the 
pen  that  wrote  the  proclamation. 

In  all  these  respects  the  manifesto  was  compara- 
tively a  failure.  But  it  accomplished  at  once  the 
great  end  to  which  it  was  most  immediately  directed 
by  the  President — it  consolidated  the  Republican 
Party,  and  made  it  more  intensely  than  ever  "  the 
war-party  of  the  country."  It  is  true  that  veteran 
Republicans,  like  Thurlow  Weed,  shrank  in  dismay 
from  the  measure  ;  but  in  the  great  body  of  the 
party  it  kindled  a  new  flame  of  martial  enthusiasm, 
albeit  the  "roads"  in  New  England  did  not  "swarm" 
with  volunteer  soldiers,  as  Governor  Andrew  had 
promised  and  predicted,  during  the  "  pressure "  pe- 
riod, w^ould  be  the  case,  provided  the  President 
would  allow  them  to  fight  "with  God  and  human 
nature  on  their  side."  The  anti-slavery  passions  of 
the  North,  which  had  hitherto  been  kicking  in  the 
traces,  were  now  effectively  yoked  to  the  war-chariot 
of  the  President.  The  proclamation  lessened  for 
a  time  the  number  of  his  supporters,  but  it  gave 
to  them  almost  the  compactness  of  a  Macedonian 
phalanx.  It  put  an  end  to  political  vacillation  and 
aternioieinent.  Not  that  the  measure  in  either  mat- 
ter or  form  was  entirely  satisfactory  to  the  zealots  of 
emancipation,  and  not  that  the  President,  as  Lord 
Lyons  wrote  to  his  government,  "had  thrown  him- 

*  National  Intelligencer,  July  31,  1862. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  54 1 

self  in  the  arms  of  the  Radicals."  While  still  refus- 
ing to  walk  altogether  in  the  ways  of  these  extrem- 
ists, he  established  such  a  hold  on  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  Republican  army  that  they  followed  him  with- 
out faltering  through  the  shadow  of  the  dim  eclipse 
which  obscured  their  fortunes  in  the  autumn  of  1862. 
A  year  later,  after  the  victory  at  Gettysburg  and 
after  the  fall  of  Vicksburg,  when  the  shock  of  arms 
on  a  hundred  battle-fields  had  come  to  supply  the 
country  with  a  new  set  of  emotions,  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
able  to  say,  "We  have  the  new  reckoning." 

Doubtless  there  are  those  who,  on  the  view  here 
presented,  will  tax  Mr.  Lincoln  with  undue  subserv- 
iency to  party.  But  it  is  only  just  to  remember  that 
he  tried  to  avoid  its  necessity,  as  with  strong  crying 
and  tears ;  that  he  was  called  in  his  political  geome- 
try to  deal  with  problems,  not  theorems  ;  and  that 
he  was  a  tentative  statesman,  who  groped  his  way  a 
tdtonSy  not  a  doctrinaire.  If  there  be  heroes,  as  Car- 
lyle  conceives  them,  bathed  in  the  eternal  splendors, 
and  projected  out  of  the  eternities  into  the  times  and 
their  arenas,  Lincoln  did  not  profess  to  be  of  their 
number. 

I  pass  to  consider  the  force  and  effect  of  the  pro- 
clamation viewed  in  the  light  of  constitutional  and 
of  public  law.  And  here,  again,  it  is  necessary  to 
guard  against  a  confusion  of  ideas.  The  question  at 
issue  does  not  concern  the  right  of  a  belligerent  to 


542  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

liberate  slaves,  flagrante  bel/o,  by  military  order  ac- 
companied with  manucaption,  or  the  right  to  enlist 
such  liberated  slaves  in  his  army,  so  long  as  the  war 
lasts.  The  employment  of  colored  troops,  as  has  been 
shown,  did  not  depend  on  the  Emancipation  Procla- 
mation, for  the  President  was  opposed  to  the  arming 
of  negroes  when  he  first  embarked  on  his  emancipa- 
tion policy.  The  questions  presented  by  the  procla- 
mation of  January  i,  1863,  in  the  shape  actually 
given  to  it  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  are  these  : 

Firstly — Had  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
in  the  exercise  of  his  war  powers,  a  right,  under 
the  Constitution  and  by  public  law,  to  decree,  on 
grounds  of  military  necessity,  the  emancipation  and 
perpetual  enfranchisement  of  slaves  in  the  insurgent 
States  and  parts  of  States  ? 

Secondly — Did  such  proclamation  work,  by  its  own 
vigor,  the  immediate,  the  unconditional  and  the  per- 
petual emancipation  of  all  slaves  in  the  districts  af- 
fected by  it  ? 

Thirdly — Did  such  proclamation,  ^orVxng  p7'oprw 
vtgore,  not  only  effect  the  emancipation  of  all  exist- 
ing slaves  in  the  insurgent  territory,  but,  with  regard 
to  slaves  so  liberated,  did  it  extinguish  the  status  of 
slavery  created  by  municipal  law,  insomuch  that 
they  would  have  remained  forever  free,  in  fact  and 
law,  provided  the  Constitution  and  the  legal  rights 
and  relations  of  the  States  under  it  had  remained, 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  543 

on  the  return  of  peace,  what  they  were  before  the 
war  ? 

Unless  each  and  all  of  these  questions  can  be  an- 
swered in  the  affirmative,  the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion was  not  authorized  by  the  Constitution  or  by  in- 
ternational law,  and  so  far  as  they  must  be  answered 
in  the  negative  it  was  brutuvi  ftilnien.  It  remains, 
then,  to  make  inquiry  under  each  of  these  heads  : 

I.  As  everybody  admits  that  the  President,  in  time 
of  peace  and  in  the  normal  exercise  of  his  consti- 
tutional prerogatives,  had  no  power  to  emancipate 
slaves,  it  follows  that  the  right  accrued  to  him,  if  at 
all,  from  the  war  powers  lodged  in  his  hands  by  pub- 
lic law  when,  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and 
navy,  he  was  engaged  in  a  life-and-death  struggle 
with  insurgents,  whose  number,  power,  and  legal  de- 
scription gave  them  the  character  of  public  enemies. 
It  is,  therefore,  to  public  law,  as  enfolded  in  time  of 
war  and  for  war  purposes  in  the  bosom  of  the  Con- 
stitution, that  we  are  primarily  to  look  for  the  author- 
ity under  which  the  President  assumed  to  act. 

Of  international  law  no  less  can  be  said  than  has 
been  said  by  Webster  :  "If,  for  the  decision  of  any 
question,  the  proper  rule  is  to  be  found  in  the  law  of 
nations,  that  law  adheres  to  the  subject.  It  follows 
the  subject  through,  no  matter  into  what  place,  high 
or  low.  You  cannot  escape  the  law  of  nations  in  a 
case  where  it  is  applicable.     The  air  of  every  judi- 


544  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

catiire  is  full  of  it.  It  pervades  the  courts  of  law  of 
the  highest  character,  and  the  court  oi pie poudre,  ay, 
even  the  constable's  court.""" 

This  international  law,  with  all  its  belligerent 
rights,  was  everywhere  present  as  a  potent  force  in 
the  civil  war  between  the  United  States  and  the 
Confederate  States,  so  soon  as  that  war  had  assumed 
such  character  and  magnitude  as  to  give  the  United 
States  the  same  rights  and  powers  which  they  might 
exercise  in  the  case  of  a  national  or  foreign  war,  and 
everybody  admits  that  it  assumed  that  character  after 
the  act  of  Congress  of  July  13,  1861.  But  interna- 
tional law,  in  time  of  war,  is  present  with  its  belliger- 
ent obligations  as  well  as  with  its  belligerent  rights, 
and  what  those  oblifjations  are  is  matter  of  definite 
knowledge  so  far  as  they  are  recognized  and  observed 
in  the  conduct  and  jurisprudence  of  civilized  nations. 

The  law  of  postliminy,  according  to  which  persons 
or  things  taken  by  the  enemy  are  restored  to  their 
former  state  when  they  come  again  under  the  power 
of  the  nation  to  which  they  formerly  belonged,  was 
anciently  held  to  restore  the  rights  of  the  owner  in 
the  case  of  a  slave  temporarily  affranchised  by  mili- 
tary capture.  And,  if  it  be  admitted  that,  as  regards 
slaves,  this  fiction  of  the  Roman  law  has  fallen  into 
desuetude  under  the  present  practice  of  nations,  it  is 
none  the  less  true  that  the  Government  of  the  United 

*  Webster's  Works,  vol.  vi.,  p.  122. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  545 

States  has  earnestly  contended,  in  its  intercourse  with 
other  nations,  for  the  substantial  principle  on  which 
the  rule  is  based.  We  insisted  on  restoration  or 
restitution  in  the  case  of  all  slaves  emancipated  by 
British  commanders  in  the  war  of  1S12-15,  and  the 
justice  of  our  claim  under  the  law  of  nations  was  con- 
ceded by  Great  Britain  when  she  signed  the  Treaty 
of  Ghent,  and  when,  on  the  arbitration  of  Russia,  she 
paid  a  round  sum,  by  way  of  indemnity,  to  be  distrib- 
uted among-  the  owners  of  slaves  who  had  been  de- 
spoiled  of  their  slave  property. ^^  In  the  face  of  a 
precedent  so  set  and  so  adjudicated  by  these  great 
powers  acting  under  the  law  of  nations  (and  one  of 
them  subsequently  known  as  the  leading  anti-slavery 
power  of  the  civilized  world),  it  would  seem  that,  as 
a  question  of  law,  the  first  interrogatory  must  be  an- 
swered in  the  negative.  Slaves  temporarily  captured 
to  weaken  the  enemy  and  to  conquer  a  peace  are 
not  lawful  prize  of  war  by  military  proceedings  alone 
— proclamation,  capture  and  deportation.  The  more 
fully  it  be  conceded  that  international  law,  in  time 
and  fact  of  war,  knows  the  slave  only  as  a  person, 
the  more  fully  must  it  be  conceded  that  this  law,  by 
purely  military  measures,  can  take  no  cognizance  of 
him  as  a  chattel,  either  to  preserve  or  to  destroy  the 
master's  property  right  under  municipal  law.  It 
leaves  questions  about  the  chattel  to  be  settled  in 

■"■  Lawrence's   Whcaton,  pp.  612,  650. 
35  11  .    ov 


546  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

another  form,   and    by  another  judicature  than  the 
wasfer  of  battle. 

Nor  does  it  help  the  matter  to  say  that  in  a  terri- 
torial civil  war  the  Federal  Government  is  clothed 
with  the  rights  of  a  constitutional  sovereign  in  ad- 
dition to  those  of  a  belligerent  ;  for,  though  this 
statement  is  entirely  true,  it  is  not  true  that  both  of 
these  jurisdictions  apply  at  the  same  time,  or  that  it 
is  lawful  to  import  the  methods  and  processes  of  the 
one  into  the  domain  of  the  other.  A  government, 
for  instance,  may  proceed  against  armed  rebels  by  the 
law  of  war — killing  them  in  battle  if  it  find  them  in 
battle  array  ;  by  public  law — confiscating  their  prop- 
erty ;  by  sovereign  constitutional  law — condemning 
them  to  death,  for  treason,  after  due  trial  and  con- 
viction. But  each  of  these  proceedings  moves  in  a 
sphere  of  its  own,  and  the  methods  of  the  one  sphere 
cannot  be  injected  into  the  sphere  of  the  other.  It 
would,  for  example,  be  a  shocking  violation  of  both 
constitutional  and  public  law  to  shoot  down  insurgent 
prisoners  of  war,  in  cold  blood,  because  they  were 
"  red-handed  traitors,"  and  because  they  might  have 
been  lawfully  killed  in  battle.  The  military  capture 
of  a  slave  and  the  confiscation  of  the  owner's  property 
rights  in  him  fall  under  separate  jurisdictions,  and 
they  cannot  both  be  condensed  into  the  hands  of  a 
military  commander  any  more  than  into  the  hands  of 
a  judge. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  547 

2.  No  principle  of  public  law  is  clearer  than  that 
which  rules  the  war  rights  of  a  belligerent  to  be  cor- 
relative and  commensurate  only  with  his  war  powers. 
"  To  extend  the  rights  of  military  occupation  or  the 
limits  of  conquest  by  mere  intention,  implication,  or 
proclamation,  would  be,"  says  Halleck,  "establishing 
a  pape7'  conquest  infinitely  more  objectionable  in  its 
character  and  effects  than  a  pape7'  blockade.'''  ^  It  is 
only  so  far  as  and  so  fast  as  the  conquering  belliger- 
ent reclaims  '*  enemy  territory  "  and  gets  possession 
of  "  enemy  property  "  that  his  belligerent  rights  at- 
tach to  either.  And  hence,  when  Mr.  Lincoln,  on 
the  ist  of  January,  1863,  assumed  authority,  in  the 
name  of  "  military  necessity,"  but  without  the  indis- 
pensable occupatio  bellica,  to  emancipate  slaves  in  the 
territory  held  by  the  enemy,  he  contravened  a  funda- 
mental principle  of  the  public  law — a  principle  equally 
applicable  to  the  relations  of  a  territorial  civil  war  and 
of  a  foreign  war.  It  is  important  to  observe  that 
where  this  principle  was  guarded  by  the  rights  and 
interests  of  foreign  nations,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Southern  ports  of  entry  while  they  were  under  the 
power  of  the  Confederate  authority,  it  was  sacredly 
respected  by  our  government.  And  in  the  light  of 
this  doctrine  it  follows  that  the  second  of  the  ques- 
tions formulated  above  must  also  be  answered  in  the 

*  Halleck,  Intertiational  Law,  chapter  xxxii.  §  2.     Cf.  2  Sprague's  Reports, 
p.  149. 


548  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

negative;  for  as  to  large  parts  of  the  South  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  no  de  facto  power  when  he  assumed  to 
liberate  slaves  both  dc  facto  and  de  jure  within  all 
the  "enemy  territory"  at  that  date. 

3.  Since  the  decision  of  Lord  Stowell  in  the  case 
of  the  slave  Grace,*  it  has  been  an  accepted  doctrine 
of  jurisprudence  that  the  slave  character  of  a  liber- 
ated slave — liberated  by  residing  on  free  soil — is  re- 
dintegrated by  the  voluntary  return  of  such  slave  to 
the  country  of  the  master.  Unless,  therefore,  the 
Proclamation  of  Freedom  is  held  to  have  extinguished 
the  status  of  slavery  in  the  States  and  parts  of  States 
affected  by  it,  it  would  have  conferred  a  very  equiv- 
ocal boon  on  its  beneficiaries.  For,  unless  the  mu- 
nicipal law  of  slavery  were  wiped  out  by  the  Procla- 
mation, and  by  conquest  under  it,  what  prevented  a 
re-enslavement  of  such  emancipated  blacks  as  should 
return  to  their  homes  after  the  war  ?  And  this  fact 
was  made  apparent  to  Mr.  Lincoln  and  to  the  whole 
country  as  soon  as  an  occasion  arose  for  bringing  the 
matter  to  a  practical  test. 

On  the  1 8th  of  July,  1864,  when  the  famous  "  peace 
negotiations  "  were  pending  at  Niagara  Falls  between 
Mr.  Greeley  and  certain  assumed  representatives  of 
the  Confederate  States,  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  that  he 
would  receive  and  consider  "  any  proposition  which 
embraced  the  restoration  of  peace,  the  integrity  of 

*  2  Haggard's  Reports,  p.  94. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  549 

the  whole  country,  and  the  abandonmait  of  slavery, 
and  which  came  by  and  with  an  authority  that  can 
control  the  armies  noia  at  war  against  the  United 
States.''  It  was  seen  that  the  emancipation  of  indi- 
vidual slaves,  even  of  all  individual  slaves  in  the  in- 
surgent States,  was  worth  nothing  without  an  aban- 
donment of  slavery  itself — of  the  municipal  status  in 
which  the  slave  character  was  radicated,  and  in  which 
it  might  be  planted  anew  by  a  voluntary  return  to 
the  slave  soil.  It  was  seen,  too,  that  the  Proclamation 
of  Freedom,  considered  as  a  military  edict  addressed 
to  "  rebels  in  arms,"  had  created  a  misjoinder  of  par- 
ties as  well  as  a  misjoinder  of  issues,  for  the  author- 
ity which  controlled  the  Confederate  armies  was  not 
competent  to  "abandon  slavery"  in  the  insurgent 
States,  though  it  zuas  competent  to  restore  "  peace 
and  union  "  by  simply  desisting  from  further  hostili- 
ties. A  misjoinder  of  issues  was  also  created,  for 
each  State,  under  the  Constitution  as  it  stood,  had  a 
right,  in  the  matter  of  slavery,  to  order  and  control 
its  own  domestic  institutions  according  to  its  own 
judgment  exclusively  ;  and  the  nation,  by  the  con- 
quest of  its  own  territory,  "could  acquire  no  new 
sovereignty,  but  merely  maintain  its  previous  rights."^' 
The  proclamation  proposed  to  leave  the  institution 
of  slavery  undisturbed  in  certain  States  and  parts  of 
States,  while  destroying  it  in  certain  other  States  and 

*  2  Sprague's  Reports,  p.  14S. 


550  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

parts  of  States.  Hence,  on  the  supposition  that  the 
paper  was  to  have  full  force  and  effect  after  the  war, 
while  our  civil  policy  remained  the  same,  a  new  dis- 
tribution of  powers,  as  between  certain  States  and 
parts  of  States  on  the  one  hand  and  the  Federal 
Government  on  the  other,  would  have  been  created 
by  edict  of  the  Executive.*  Without  any  express 
change  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
without  any  express  change  in  the  constitutions  of 
the  insurgent  States,  the  status  of  persons  on  one 
side  of  a  State  line,  or  even  on  one  side  of  a  county 
line,  would  have  depended  on  municipal  law  ;  on  the 
other  side  of  such  State  or  county  line  it  would  have 
depended  on  a  military  decree  of  the  President.  In 
this  strange  mixture  of  what  Tacitus  calls  '' 7'cs  dis- 
sociabiles — prmcipatMm  ac  libertateni^'  it  would  have 
been  hard  to  tell  where  the  former  ended  and  the 
latter  began  ;  and  to  suppose  that  the  civil  courts,  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  judicial  decision,  could  have 
recognized  such  anomalies,  while  the  rights  of  the 
States  under  the  Constitution  were  still  defined  by 
that  instrument,  is  to  suppose  that  judges  decree 
justice  without  law,  without  rule,  and  without  reason. 
It  is  safe,  therefore,  to  say  that  the  third  question 
above  indicated  must  equally  be  answered  in  the 
negative. 

And  even  if  it  be  held  that  the  President's  want 

*  2  Hurd,  Law  of  Freedom  and  Bondage,  p.  787. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  55  I 

of  power  to  issue  the  i)roclamation  without  the 
accompanying  occupatio  bcllica,  and  that  the  conse- 
quent want  of  efficacy  in  the  paper  to  work  emanci- 
pation//-f?/;'/^  vigorc,  were  cured  by  actual  conquest 
under  it  on  the  part  of  the  government,  and  by 
actual  submission  to  it  on  the  part  of  the  seceded 
States,  insomuch  that  it  would  have  operated  the 
extinction  of  the  slave  status  in  those  States,  it  still 
remains  none  the  less  clear  that,  without  a  change 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  prohibiting 
slavery  in  the  South,  the  proclamation  must  have 
failed,  with  the  rights  of  plenary  conquest  limited 
by  the  Constitution,  to  insure  the  perpetual  free- 
dom of  the  slaves  liberated  under  it ;  for  what, 
under  the  rights  still  reserved  to  the  States,  would 
have  prevented  the  future  re-establishment  of  slav- 
ery at  the  South  after  the  return  of  peace  ? 

Nobody  was  more  quick  to  perceive  or  more  frank 
to  admit  the  legal  weakness  and  insufficiency  of  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  than  Mr.  Lincoln.  De- 
termined though  he  was  never  to  retract  the  paper, 
or  by  his  own  act  to  return  to  slavery  any  person 
who  was  declared  free  by  its  terms,  he  saw  that,  in 
itself  considered,  it  was  a  frail  muniment  of  title  to 
any  slave  who  should  claim  to  be  free  by  virtue  of 
its  vigor  alone.  And  therefore  it  was  that,  with  a 
candor  which  did  him  honor,  he  made  no  pretense 
of  concealing  its  manifold  infirmities  either  from  hig 


552  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

own  eyes  or  from  the  eyes  of  the  people,  so  soon  as 
Congress  proposed,  in  a  way  of  undoubted  consti- 
tutionality and  of  undoubted  efficacy,  to  put  an  end 
to  slavery  everywhere  in  the  Union  by  an  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution.  Remarking  on  that 
amendment  at  the  time  of  its  proposal,  he  said : 
"  A  question  might  be  raised  whether  the  procla- 
mation was  legally  valid.  It  might  be  added  that  it 
aided  only  those  who  came  into  our  lines,  and  that 
it  was  inoperative  as  to  those  who  did  not  give 
themselves  up  ;  or  that  it  would  have  no  effect  upon 
the  children  of  the  slaves  born  hereafter;  in  fact,  it 
could  be  urged  that  it  did  not  meet  the  evil.  But 
this  amendment  is  a  king's  cure  for  all  evils.  It 
winds  the  whole  thing  up."* 

In  the  light  of  these  facts,  of  these  principles,  and 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  admissions,  it  would  seem  that 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  extra-constitu- 
tional— so  truly  outside  of  the  Constitution  that  it 
required  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  to  bring 
the  President's  engagements  and  promises  inside  of 
the  Constitution.  And  surely  it  will  not  be  pre- 
tended that  the  President,  even  on  the  plea  of  mili- 
tary necessity,  has  a  right  to  originate  amendments 
to  the  Constitution,  or  to  wage  war  on  States  until 
they  agree  to  adopt  amendments  of  his  imposing. 
This  would  be  to  "  theorize  with  bayonets,  and  to 

*  Raymond,  Life  and  State  Papers  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  p.  646. 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  553 

doofmatize  in  blood."  This  would  be  to  make  it 
competent  for  the  President  in  time  of  war  to  alter 
the  fundamental  law  of  the  land  by  prommczamiento 
— a  mode  of  proceeding  which  falls  not  only  outside 
of  the  Constitution,  but  outside  of  the  United  States 
— into  Mexico. 

The  Proclamation  fell  also  outside  of  the  jural 
relations  of  slavery  under  international  law.  Con- 
ceding that  slaves,  in  time  of  war,  are  known  under 
international  law  only  as  persons,  we  still  have  to 
hold  that,  as  residents  of  "enemy  territory,"  the 
slaves  here  in  question  were,  by  the  terms  of  that 
code,  as  much  ''enemies"  of  the  United  States  as 
their  masters.*  But  the  proclamation  treated  them 
as  friends  and  allies.  In  the  eye  of  municipal  law, 
they  were  property,  and  the  proclamation  acknowl- 
edged them  as  such  in  the  act  of  declaring  them 
free  ;  but,  as  such,  they  were  confiscable  only  by 
due  process  of  law,  after  manucaption  ;  and  whether 
they  were  confiscated  under  public  law,  or  under 
sovereign  constitutional  law,  would  simply  depend 
on  the  nature  and  terms  of  the  confiscation  act 
adopted  by  Congress.  If  they  were  confiscated  as 
"enemy  property,"  in  order  to  weaken  the  enemy, 
the  act  would  fall  under  public  law.  If  they  were 
confiscated  in  order  to  punish  the  treason  of  their 

*  "  In    war,   all   residents    of    enemy  country  are  enemies." — Chief-Justice 
Waite  (2  Otto,  p.  194),  in  common  with  all  the  authorities. 


554  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

owners,  whereof  such  owners  had  been  duly  con- 
victed, the  act  would  fall  under  sovereign  constitu- 
tional law.  But  the  proclamation  assumed  to  con- 
fiscate the  property  rights  of  the  slave-owners 
without  any  process  of  law  at  all ;  and  so  it  fell  as 
much  outside  of  public  law  as  it  fell  outside  of  con- 
stitutional law  and  of  municipal  law.  Nor  has  any 
amendment  of  public  law  as  yet  brought  within  the 
sanctions  of  international  jurisprudence  the  preten- 
sion of  a  belligerent  to  alter  and  abolish,  by  procla- 
mation, the  political  and  domestic  institutions  of  a 
territory  within  which  he  has,  at  the  time,  no  de 
facto  power.  On  the  contrary,  the  pretension  is 
traversed  by  the  latest  codifications  of  international 
law,'*  and  by  the  latest  publications  of  our  own  State 
Department.f  And  hence  it  is  no  matter  of  surprise 
that  the  first  international  lawyers  of  the  country, 
like  the  Honorable  William  Beach  Lawrence,  and 
the  first  constitutional  lawyers  of  the  country,  like 
the  late  Benjamin  R.  Curtis,  have  recorded  their 
opinion  as  jurists  against  the  legality  of  the  Emanci- 
pation Proclamation. 

Lawyers,  as  Burke  said  at  the  beginning  of  the 
American  Revolution,  ''have  their  strict  rule  to  go 
by,"  and  they  must  needs  be  true  to  their  profes- 

*  Bluntschli,    Das  Modern    Volkcrrcchts,  p.   306.     (Lardy's   French  version 
obscures  and  misinterprets  the  text  of  the  original  on  this  point.) 
f  Cadwalader,  Digest,  pp.  56,  57,  148,  151. 


BY  JAMES   C.    WELLING.  555 

sion,  but  "  the  convulsions  of  a  great  empire  are  not 
fit  matter  of  discussion  under  a  commission  of  Oyer 
and  Terminer."  The  Emancipation  Proclamation 
did  not  draw  its  breath  in  the  serene  atmosphere  of 
law.  It  was  born  in  the  smoke  of  battle,  and  its 
swaddline-bands  were  rolled  in  blood.  It  was  in 
every  sense  of  the  word  a  coup  d'etat,  but  one  which 
the  nation  at  first  condoned,  and  then  ratified  by 
an  amendment  to  the  Constitution.  As  Mr.  Welles 
says,  "It  was  a  despotic  act  in  the  cause  of  the 
Union  " — an  act,  he  adds,  "almost  revolutionary," 
and  it  was  almost  and  not  altogether  revolutionary, 
simply  because  it  fell  short  of  the  practical  and  legal 
effects  at  which  it  was  nominally  aimed.  It  was,  in 
fact,  martial  law  applied  to  a  question  of  politics  and 
of  polity  ;  and  of  martial  law,  Sir  Matthew  Hale  has 
said  that  "  in  truth  and  reality  it  is  no  law  at  all,  but 
something  indulged."  If  we  would  look  for  its 
fountain  and  source,  we  must  look  to  an  institute 
which  makes  small  account  of  all  human  conventions 
and  charters — the  lex  talionis.  The  proclamation 
was  the  portentous  retaliatory  blow  of  a  belligerent 
brought  to  bay  in  a  death-grapple,  and  who  drops 
his  "elder-squirts  charged  with  rose-water"  (the 
phrase  is  Mr.  Lincoln's),  that  he  may  hurl  a  mon- 
strous hand-grenade,  charged  with  fulminating  pow- 
der, full  in  the  faces  of  the  foe.  The  phenomenon 
is  as  old  as  the  history  of  civil  war ;  and  because  he 


C56  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

saw  it  was  likely  to  re-appear  so  long  as  human  na- 
ture remained  the  same,  Thucydides  had  a  presage 
that  his  history  of  the  civil  war  between  Athens  and 
Sparta  would  be  "a  possession  forever."  "War," 
he  wrote,  "  is  a  violent  master,  and  assimilates  the 
tempers  of  most  men  to  the  condition  in  which  it 
places  them."  So  Cromwell,  in  the  hour  of  his 
political  agony,  exclaimed  against  "the  pitiful, 
beastly  notion"  that  a  government  was  to  be  "clam- 
ored at  and  blattered  at,"  because  it  went  beyond 
law  in  time  of  storm  and  stress. 

And  there  is  something  worse  than  a  breach  of  the 
Constitution.  It  is  worse  to  lose  the  country  for 
which  the  Constitution  was  made ;  but,  if  the  defense 
of  the  proclamation  can  be  rested  on  this  ground,  the 
fact  does  not  require  us  to  teach  for  doctrine  of  law 
that  which  is  outside  of  law  and  against  law.  Mr. 
Jefferson  held  the  Louisiana  purchase  to  be  extra- 
constitutional,  but  he  did  not  try  to  bring  it  inside 
of  the  Constitution  by  construction.  That  he  left  to 
others.  It  seems  a  waste  of  logic  to  argue  the  va- 
lidity of  Mr.  Lincoln's  edict.  It  moved  above  law, 
in  the  plane  of  statecraft.  Not  that  its  author,  in 
so  proceeding,  moved  on  the  moral  plane  of  the  in- 
surgents. He  wrought  to  save,  they  to  destroy,  the 
Union.  Not  that  he  acted  in  malice,  for,  as  he  pro- 
tested, the  case  "  was  too  vast  for  malicious  deal- 
ing."    And  not  that  he  clearly  foresaw  the  end  of 


BY  JAMES  C.    WELLING.  557 

his  Step  from  its  beginning-.  The  fateful  times  in 
which  he  acted  the  foremost  part  were  larger  than 
any  of  the  men  who  lived  in  them,  tall  and  com- 
mandino-  as  is  the  fiijure  of  the  benio-n  war  Presi- 
dent,  and  the  events  then  moving  over  the  dial  of 
history  were  grander  than  the  statesmen  or  soldiers 
who  touched  the  springs  that  made  them  move.  It 
was  a  day  of  elemental  stir,  and  the  ground  is  still 
quaking  beneath  our  feet,  under  the  throes  and 
convulsions  of  that  great  social  and  political  change 
which  was  first  definitely  foreshadowed  to  the 
world  by  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 

JAMES    C.    WELLING. 


XXXI. 

John  Conness. 

MUCH  has  been  written  concerning  the  rela- 
tions of  Abraham  Lincohi  and  Salmon  P. 
Chase,  but  the  history  of  their  separation  in  1864 
and  the  acceptance  of  the  resignation  of  Mr.  Chase 
as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  as  given  by  the  Presi- 
dent in  a  semi-official  manner  at  that  time,  has  not 
been  presented  to  the  public. 

The  prosecution  of  the  war  had  not  up  to  that 
time  been  very  successful,  and  the  public  credit  was 
at  its  lowest  ebb.  Gold  was  at  2.80,  and  the  peo- 
ple were  rather  discouraged.  The  first  term  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  by  common 
consent  the  President  was  a  candidate  for  re-elec- 
tion. As  stated  by  himself  in  his  own  way,  "  it  was 
not  well  to  swap  horses  in  the  middle  of  a  stream." 

He  was  willing  to  be  a  candidate  because  he  could 
best  represent  the  issue  with  the  Democratic  Party, 
who  were  declaring  the  war  a  failure,  and  preparing 
to  put  a  candidate  in  the  field  upon  that  declaration. 

Thus,  as  in  the  instance  of  his  first  nomination, 


c6o  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

without  personal  ambition,  he  was  willing  to  be  an 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  people  to  test  the 
great  issue  before  them.  He  had  declared  the  pur- 
pose of  the  war  by  the  administration  to  be  the 
preservation  of  the  Union.  The  Democratic  Party 
claimed  that  the  war  for  this  purpose  was  a  failure, 
and  that  the  Union  could  only  be  preserved  by 
peace  and  negotiation.  This  was  the  issue  then 
clearly  made  up  between  the  Democratic  and  Re- 
publican parties. 

Salmon  P.  Chase,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  was 
also  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  That  he  was  an 
able,  upright  and  patriotic  man  need  not  be  stated. 
He  represented  such  of  the  Republican  Party  as  be- 
lieved that  the  war  had  not  been  waged  with  the 
vigor  and  power  necessary  to  conquer  a  peace  ;  and 
also  by  those  who  wished  it  carried  on  more  with 
reference  to  the  expurgation  of  slavery  than  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  done. 

The  President  held  that  it  was  his  duty  to  pre- 
serve the  Union,  with  or  without  slavery,  while 
Mr.  Chase  believed,  as  an  old  antislavery  man,  that 
the  destruction  of  slavery  was  the  chief  means  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  war  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Union. 

The  candidature  of  both  was  calculated  to  lead  to 
infelicitous  relations  between  the  two,  and  it  did. 
This  was  doubtless  by  reason  of  intemperate  sup- 


BY  JOHN-  CONNESS.  r5j 

porters  of  each,  who  engaged  in  making  statements 
derogatory  to  the  other. 

The  effect  upon  their  candidates  was  different.  Mr. 
Lincoln  took  it  all  easy  and  let  tales  brought  to  him 
pass  for  their  value,  which  was  not  great.  Mr.  Chase, 
very  differently  constituted,  felt  otherwise.  Over- 
sensitive and  deeply  passionate,  he  readily  saw  that 
the  partisans  of  Mr.  Lincoln  were  doing  him  injustice, 
and  that  the  President  was  not  wholly  blameless. 

Since  holding  the  portfolio  of  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  he  had  presented  his  resignation  several 
times  theretofore,  and  which  the  consummate  ad- 
dress and  genuine  kindness  of  Mr.  Lincoln  enabled 
him  to  parry  and  put  aside.  The  last,  however, 
was  accompanied  with  peculiar  irritation,  and  was 
accepted. 

It  took  the  Senate  by  surprise.  A  message  to 
that  body,  with  the  nomination  of  David  Todd,  of 
Ohio,  for  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  place  of  Sal- 
mon P.  Chase  resigned,  was  the  first  intimation  the 
Senate  had  of  the  important  event. 

The  Senate  went  at  once  into  executive  session, 
and  referred  the  nomination  to  its  Finance  Commit- 
tee and  then  adjourned. 

The  committee  met,  and,  after  a  full  consultation, 
resolved  to  wait  on  the  President  in  a  body  and  as- 
certain why  the  resignation,  whether  it  could  not  be 
reconsidered,  and,  if  it  could  not,  why  the  name  of 


36 


562  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

David   Todd  was   sent  in  as  the    successor  of   Mr. 
Chase. 

The  committee  went  to  the  Executive  Mansion, 
where  the  President  met  them,  and  the  case  and 
the  object  of  their  visit  were  stated  by  WilHam  Pitt 
Fessenden,  their  chairman. 

It  is  not  putting  it  too  strongly  to  say  that  the 
committee,  or  many  members  of  it,  felt  that  the  fault 
was  not  alone  that  of  Mr.  Chase,  and  that  in  all 
probability  the  President  was  somewhat  to  blame  ; 
that  the  change  in  the  Treasury  Department  at  that 
time,  where  Mr.  Chase  had  done  valuable  work, 
would  be  a  public  misfortune,  and  that  the  nomina- 
tion of  Todd  showed  a  want  of  appreciation  by  the 
President  of  the  condition  of  the  public  credit. 

David  Todd  had  been  one  of  the  sturdiest  of  the 
"  War  Governors,"  and  was  known  as  a  sterling 
patriot,  but  no  one  thought  of  him  as  a  proper  head 
of  the  Treasury  Department  then,  or  as  a  fitting 
successor  of  Chase. 

Mr.  Lincoln  at  once  relieved  the  committee  con- 
cerning this  last  consideration,  by  stating  that  he 
had  a  dispatch  from  Governor  Todd  declining  the 
office  ;  but  before  dismissing  that  branch  of  the  sub- 
ject, said  he  had  met  many  men  since  our  troubles 
began,  and  comparing  him  with  others — taking  him 
all  in  all — he  thought  "  Dave  Todd  was  considerable 
of  a  man." 


BY  JOHN   CONNESS.  563 

He  then  went  at  length  into  a  history  of  his  rela- 
tions with  "  Governor  Chase,"  as  he  styled  him  ; 
how  he  came  to  invite  him,  and  in  fact  every  other 
member  of  his  Cabinet,  to  the  places  they  filled, 
stating  that  he  was  governed  in  the  selection  of  each 
by  the  need  of  representing  the  geographical  and 
political  sections  of  the  country,  and  the  prominence 
of  each  as  representing  opinion,  giving  the  idea  that 
it  was  not  agreement  in  a  Cabinet  that  he  sought 
so  much  as  representatives  of  differing  sections  and 
factions  ;  so  Abolitionists,  Conservatives,  and  the 
Blair  family  found  representation  in  the  Cabinet  of 
Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  President  was  deeply  serious  throughout,  and 
there  was  probably  never  a  clearer  exposition  of  mo- 
tive and  character  made  than  was  then  presented  by 
him.  His  Cabinet  seemed  to  have  been  selected 
with  more  impersonal  consideration  than  was  possi- 
ble to  most  men.  He  rose  from  his  seat  and  took 
from  some  pigeon-holes  near  him  all  the  correspond- 
ence which  had  passed  between  him  and  Mr.  Chase, 
and  read  to  the  committee,  commenting  as  he  went 
on.  He  recounted  the  many  times  "  Governor 
Chase "  had  tendered  resignation,  and  the  irrita- 
tion that  had  grown  out  of  these  repetitions,  laying 
special  stress  upon  the  last  of  them. 

John  J.  Cisco  had  resigned  the  office  of  Assistant 
Treasurer  at  New  York ;  the  place  had  been  offered 


564  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

to  several  gentlemen  who  declined  it,  and  now  the 
Secretary  had  determined  to  fill  it  with  a  man  of 
his  own  choice.  Friends  of  the  President,  and  he, 
were  opposed  to  Mr.  Chase's  selection.  The  Secre- 
tary claimed  that  he  was  responsible  for  the  finances, 
and  he  should  control  this  office.  The  President 
refused  to  appoint  his  man,  but  said  he  ofi"ered  to 
appoint  any  other  that  Mr.  Chase  might  name. 

"  Now,  gentlemen,"  continued  the  President,  "  I 
could  not  appoint  him.  He  had  only  recently  at  a 
social  gathering,  in  presence  of  ladies  and  gentle- 
men, while  intoxicated,  kicked  his  hat  up  against  the 
ceiling,  bringing  discredit  upon  us  all,  and  proving 
his  unfitness." 

The  President  went  specially  into  the  difficulties 
which  had  come  up  between  him  and  his  Secretary, 
growing  out  of  the  improper  conduct  of  their 
political  friends,  saying  that  he  had  no  objection  to 
the  candidacy  of  Mr.  Chase — he  had  a  right  to  be  a 
candidate — but  there  had  grown  such  a  state  of  feel- 
ing that  it  was  unpleasant  for  them  to  meet  each 
other  ;  and  now  Mr.  Chase  had  resigned,  and  he 
had  accepted  the  resignation. 

He  added  :  "  I  will  not  longer  continue  the  asso- 
ciation. I  am  ready  and  willing  to  resign  the  office 
of  President,  and  let  you  have  Mr.  Hamlin  for  your 
President,  but  I  will  no  longer  endure  the  state  I 
have  been  in." 


BY  JOHN   CONN  ESS.  565 

The  above  were  nearly  his  words,  spoken  with 
deep  seriousness.  Through  all  this  interview,  and 
the  history  of  painful,  personal  relations,  there  was 
no  word  nor  thought  impugning  the  motives  or  pur- 
poses of  the  outgoing  Secretary.  It  was  a  deeply 
interesting  insight  into  the  character  of  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  name  of  William 
Pitt  Fessenden  was  next  sent  to  the  Senate  for 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  His  appointment  grew 
out  of  this  interview,  and  here  is  another  of  the 
proofs  of  peculiar  ability  in  Mr.  Lincoln  to  accom- 
modate difficulties  and  reconcile  differences.  He 
saw  that  Mr.  Fessenden  would  be  acceptable  to  the 
Senate  and  country.  He  had  long  been  chairman 
of  the  Finance  Committee  of  the  Senate,  and  was 
a  sagacious,  prudent  and  able  man.  Instead  of 
further  depression  of  the  public  credit,  it  rose,  and 
never  again  receded. 

The  history  of  this  episode  in  the  life  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  would  be  incomplete,  and  fail  to  illustrate 
the  exceeding  purity  and  generosity  of  his  nature, 
without  calling  to  mind  how  soon  after  he  was  able 
to  appoint  Mr.  Chase  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court.  The  great  office  was  sought  by  more  than 
one  man,  through  friends,  and  there  were  those  who 
thought  they  had  secured  for  Mr.  Chase  the  appoint- 
ment, but  Abraham  Lincoln  saw  in  it  a  fitting  act 


566  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

for  his  performance  in  that  Chase  was  worthy  of  it, 
and  this  was  the  reason  for  the  appointment. 

The  President  performed  a  great  act  in  this  ap- 
pointment, and  one  of  which  few  men  are  capable. 

It  is  a  vain  proceeding  to  try  to  correct  a  popular 
error  which  has  universal  acceptance.  I  suppose  one 
mio-ht  as  well  attempt  to  stem  the  tide  of  an  estab- 
lished theology  among  its  cohorts  ;  yet  it  is  due 
to  truth  to  state  it,  as  we  have  it  from  its  foun- 
tains. 

In  the  recent  eulogy  by  Canon  Farrar  of  General 
Grant,  reference  is  made  to  this  popular  error  con- 
cerning Abraham  Lincoln — that  he  split  rails. 
Every  one,  so  to  say,  believes  that  Mr.  Lincoln  in 
the  beginning  of  his  life  split  rails  on  some  one  or 
more  occasions.  So  far  as  it  signifies  that  he  was 
one  of  the  many  humble  people  who  populated  the 
West,  and  grew  to  the  highest  estate  in  his  land,  it 
may  be  accepted.  But  Mr.  Lincoln  told  the  writer 
that  he  never  split  a  rail,  and  he  described  his  con- 
fusion when,  after  his  nomination  for  President,  the 
people  came  to  congratulate  him,  bringing  on  their 
shoulders  the  rails  he  had  split.  What  should  he  do 
about  it  ?  It  was  not  true,  and  his  impulse  was  then 
and  there  to  correct  it  ;  but  here  were  masses  of 
men  taking  their  own  means  of  expressing  their  joy 
at  the  event  of  his  nomination.  Should  he  dampen 
the  ardor   of  his   supporters  on   the  threshold  of  a 


BY  JOH.V  CON X  ESS.  567 

campaign,  or  let  it  go  on,  and  treat  it  as  a  means  or 
incident  in  our  elections  ? 

He  concluded  to  let  it  pass.  The  loose  tradition 
originating  in  the  enthusiasm  and  cunning  of  his 
followers  has  now  passed  into  the  realm  of  accepted 
facts. 

Though  his  humble  beginning  gave  ample  room 
for  this  story,  and  though  it  seems  to  have  contrib- 
uted to  the  simplicity  of  his  life  rather  than  other- 
wise, as  I  am  asked  to  write  of  him  whom  the 
nation  reveres  and  loves,  it  must  be  done  as  he  re- 
vealed himself  to  me. 

One  morning  the  writer  called  on  the  President  to 
talk  with  him  on  some  public  business,  and  as  soon 
as  we  met,  he  began  by  asking  if  I  knew  Captain 
Maltby,  now  living  in  California,  saying,  "  He  is  vis- 
iting here  and  his  wife  is  with  him."  I  replied  that  I 
knew  of  him,  and  had  heard  he  was  in  Washino-ton. 
He  said  that  when  he  first  came  to  Springfield, 
where  he  was  unknown,  and  a  carpet-bag  contained 
all  he  owned  in  the  world,  and  he  was  needing 
friends.  Captain  Maltby  and  his  wife  took  him  into 
their  modest  dwelling ;  that  he  lived  with  them 
while  he  "  put  out  his  shingle  "  and  sought  business. 

He  had  known  Maltby  during  the  period  of  the 
Black  Hawk  War.  No  one  was  ever  treated  more 
kindly  than  he  was  by  them.  He  had  risen  in  the 
world,  and    they    were    poor,   and    Captain    Maltby 


568  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

wanted  some  place  which  would  give  him  a  living. 
In  fact,  said  he,  "  Maltby  wants  to  be  Superintend- 
ent of  the  Mint  at  San  Francisco,  but  he  is  hardly 
equal  to  that.  I  want  to  find  some  place  for  him,  and 
into  which  he  will  fit,  and  I  know  nothing  about 
these  things."  I  said  :  "  There  is  a  place — Super- 
intendent of  Indian  Affairs  in  California — where  the 
incumbent  should  be  superseded  for  cause,  and  the 
place  is  simply  a  great  farm,  where  the  government 
supplies  the  means  of  carrying  it  on  ;  there  is  an 
abundance  of  Indian  labor,  and  making  it  produce 
and  accounting  for  the  products  are  the  duties  prin- 
cipally." He  replied,  "Maltby  is  the  man  for  this 
place,"  and  he  was  made  entirely  happy  by  being 
able  to  serve  an  old  friend  and  good  man. 

Having  had  the  closest  relations  with  Mr.  Lincoln 
.for  some  years  while  I  was  Senator,  many  of  his 
anecdotes,  apposite  stories,  etc.,  became  known  to 
me.  Yet  most  of  them  seem  inconsequential,  and 
calculated  to  take  away  from  our  best  estimate  of 
him,  which  for  all  great  considerations  had  better 
not  be  disturbed. 

One  occurs  to  me  as  amusing  and  illustrative 
in  more  respects  than  one. 

Before  Fessenden  took  the  place  of  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  in  1864,  he  and  I  often  jarred  in  the 
Senate.  He  was  one  of  the  oldest  Republican  Sen- 
ators, and  when  the  South  seceded,  the  high  places 


BY  JOHN  CON  NESS.  c6q 

of  the  Senate  were  distributed  by  the  RepubHcan 
Senators  among  themselves.  This  gave  great  conse- 
quence to  them,  and  they  acquired  the  habit  of  con- 
trol in  the  body  before  my  term  began  in  1863. 

Then  there  had  always  been  in  the  Senate  an  aris- 
tocracy of  age — length  of  service  there.  This  was 
felt  by  such  men  as  Fessenden,  Foster,  Collamer,  and 
others.  It  was  my  misfortune  not  to  secure  the  ap- 
proval of  Mr.  Fessenden,  and  unwilling  to  investi- 
gate our  questions  arising  out  of  Spanish  and  Mexi- 
can origin,  he  was  equally  unwilling  to  take  our 
statements  in  regard  to  them  ;  therefore,  there  were 
frequent  sharp  disagreements  with  Mr.  Fessenden, 
and  our  measures,  if  passed  upon  favorably,  must  be 
carried  against  him. 

When  he  became  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  his 
magnanimity  failed  him,  and  he  carried  the  temper  of 
legislative  controversy  into  the  administration  of  his 
office.  At  this  time,  or  a  few  months  after,  there 
were  two  leading  places  in  the  Internal  Revenue  ser- 
vice in  California  to  be  filled.  Two  names  had  been 
presented  by  my  colleague  for  those  places,  and  Mr. 
Fessenden  wished  to  gratify  him  by  their  appoint- 
ment. No  more  unfit  men  could  be  chosen,  and  I 
went  to  the  President  to  hinder  the  work  of  my  col- 
league and  the  Secretary,  saying  to  him  that  he  could 
not  afford  to  give  commissions  to  the  persons  in 
question.     Always  considerate  to  me,  he  accepted  my 


570  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Statements,  and  by  this  time  Mr.  Fessenden  had 
ao-ain  been  chosen  Senator  by  Maine,  to  take  office 
after  the  4th  of  March  next  ensuing.  The  Presi- 
dent, taking  this  into  account,  but  not  naming  it, 
said  : 

"■  Suppose  we  wait  awhile  about  this  matter,  and 
then  it  will  be  all  right." 

In  this  way  he  saw  how  to  avoid  discourtesy  to  the 
Secretary  and  at  the  same  time  accomplish  his  pur- 
pose. After  the  new  Secretary  came  in,  through  Mr. 
Fessenden  he  was  disposed  to  make,  or  to  recom- 
mend the  President  to  make,  those  offensive  appoint- 
ments. Calling  on  Mr.  Lincoln  again  one  morning 
on  this  subject,  he  took  up  a  card,  and,  addressing  his 
new  Secretary  on  it  as  follows,  closed  out  the  trans- 
action : 

"  I  think  that  Lewis  A.  Gunn  for  assessor  and 
Frank  Soule  for  collector  are  about  right."  When 
writing  Soule,  he  said  : 

"  How  do  you  write  this  ?  S-o-u-W  with  a  twichet 
over  it.      Is  that  it  ?  " 

And,  assenting,  the  "twichet"  was  put  over  the 
"e"  and  the  transaction  ended. 

He  had  the  peculiar  tact   of  avoiding  difficulties,    • 
and  yet  doing  nearly  the  right  thing. 

One  of  his  consummate  arts  in  this  respect  does 
not  seem  to  be  so  well  known.  When  opposing, 
strong  political  forces  brought  their  cases  before  him. 


B  V  JOHN   CON  NESS.  5  7 1 

and  disturbing  consequences  would  come  out  of  an 
immediate  decision  by  him,  he  would  let  them  maul 
each  other,  and  wrestle  like  physical  champions  until 
both  were  "winded,"  tired  out  with  the  contest,  and 
then  he  would  decide,  the  defeated  party  being  more 
ready  to  acknowledge  the  other  was  the  strongest. 

JOHN   CONNESS. 


XXXII. 

John    B.   Alley. 

AMONG  the  greatest,  wisest  and  best  who  ever 
Hved  in  any  country,  was  the  man  who  was  at 
the  head  of  this  RepubHc  during  the  most  trying, 
perplexing  and  desperate  internal  struggle  that  ever 
afflicted,  destroyed,  or  saved  a  nation. 

Far-seeing,  sagacious,  calm  and  modest,  wherever 
placed — whether  in  humble  private  life  or  upon  the 
highest  pinnacle  of  fame  and  power — he  was  the 
same  unpretending,  and  apparently,  in  his  own  esti- 
mation, inconsequential  personage. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  know  him  well  during 
the  whole  period  of  his  administration  as  President. 
I  greatly  admired  him.  He  was  a  many-sided  per- 
son, and  for  this  reason,  perhaps,  the  estimate  by 
different  individuals  who  had  the  same  opportunities 
of  knowing  him,  was  widely  different.  Many  of  the 
most  distinguished  men  of  the  country,  who  were  in 
daily  intercourse  with  him,  thought  but  little  of  his 
capacity  as  a  statesman.  And  while  entirely  true,  it 
is  hardly  to  be  believed,  that  those  in  both  houses  of 
Congress  who  knew  him  best  had  so  little  confidence 
in  his  judgment  and  ability  to  administer  the  govern- 


574  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ment  that  very  few  of  the  members  of  the  Senate 
and  of  the  House  were  in  favor  of  his  renomination 
for  the  Presidency  in  1864. 

But  the  masses  of  the  Republicans  rose  in  their 
might  and  demanded  his  re-nomination  and  re-elec- 
tion. After  the  close  of  the  war,  when  his  great 
o-ood  judgment  and  his  patriotism  had  been  seen  and 
read  of  all  men,  the  conviction  was  universal  that 
the  wisest  thing  had  been  done  in  calling  him  for  a 
second  time  to  the  Presidential  chair. 

My  first  knowledge  of,  and  acquaintance  with,  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  in  the  summer  of  1856.  In  the  Na- 
tional Republican  Convention  of  that  year,  which 
nominated  Fremont  for  President,  "  Abe  Lincoln," 
as  the  Illinois  delegation  familiarly  called  him,  re- 
ceived a  large  support  for  the  second  office  in  the 
nation.  He  was  a  quaint  but  conspicuous  character 
at  that  time,  and  all  who  knew  him  well  seemed  to 
love  and  admire  him.  He  had  the  reputation  then 
of  being  the  finest  story  teller  in  all  the  "  West." 
My  acquaintance  with  him  was  very  slight,  until 
after  his  election  as  President,  when  I  was  a  member 
of  Congress — I  continued  as  such  during  the  whole 
of  his  Presidency. 

When  he  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency,  in 
i860,  Mr.  Seward  and  his  friends  were  greatly  dis- 
appointed. Mr  Seward,  himself,  apparently  ex- 
hibited,   under   his   discomfiture,    great   philosophy, 


BY  JOHN  B.    ALLEY.  575 

and,  in  the  several  speeches  which  he  made  urging 
Mr.  Lincoln's  election,  he  displayed  a  magnanimity 
that  challenged  the  admiration  of  the  whole  Repub- 
lican party.  They  were  the  ablest  and  most  exhaus- 
tive and  effective  speeches  that  were  delivered  by 
anybody  during  that  campaign. 

Lincoln  had  not  been  loner  In  the  Presidential 
chair  before  the  people  seemed  instinctively  to  per- 
ceive the  kind  of  man  that  he  was.  When  nomi- 
nated, the  person  who  first  received  the  information 
in  Washington  was  the  great  leader  of  the  Northern 
Democracy,  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  I  happened  to  be 
in  the  Senate  Chamber  when  Mr.  Douglas  received 
the  teleeram  announcinor  the  fact.  He  went  with  me 
from  the  Senate  Chamber  to  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, of  which  I  was  then  a  member,  and  a 
small  squad  of  Republicans  gathered  around  him  to 
hear  him  read  the  telegram.  After  reading  it,  he 
paused  for  a  few  moments  and  then  said  of  his  great 
antagonist,  "  Well,  gentlemen,  you  have  nominated 
a  very  able  and  a  very  honest  man." 

To  me  he  always  seemed  to  be  a  very  great  man. 
In  all  the  qualities  of  true  greatness  of  character  and 
mind  he  was  the  equal,  if  not  the  superior,  of  all  the 
great  statesmen  that  I  have  ever  known.  Of  all 
these  public  men,  none  seemed  to  have  so  little  pride 
of  opinion.  He  was  always  learning  and  did  not 
adhere   to  views  which    he   found   to   be  erroneous, 


576  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

simply  because  he  had  once  formed  and  held  them. 
I  remember  that  he  once  expressed  an  opinion  to  me, 
on  an  important  matter,  quite  different  from  what  he 
had  expressed  a  short  time  before,  and  I  said,  "  Mr. 
President,  you  have  changed  your  mind  entirely 
within  a  short  time."  He  replied:  "Yes,  I  have; 
and  I  don't  think  much  of  a  man  who  is  not  wiser 
to-day  than  he  was  yesterday."  A  remark  full  of 
wisdom  and  sound  philosophy.  In  this  respect, 
the  contrast  between  him  and  the  statesmen  that 
preceded  him  was  very  marked.  A  few  years  be- 
fore, the  great  political  lights  of  the  day  spent  a 
oreat  deal  of  time  in  showing  to  the  country  that 
their  opinions  upon  political  matters  remained  un- 
changed. When  Henry  Clay,  John  C.  Calhoun 
Daniel  Webster  and  John  Quincy  Adams  were  ac- 
cused of  changing  their  views,  they  contended,  with 
masterly  ability  and  great  persistency,  that  their 
views  were  unaltered  ;  that  circumstances  only  had 
altered,  not  themselves  ;  seeming  to  feel  that  it  was 
an  imputation  upon  their  judgment  to  be  accused 
of  chaneine  their  mind.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  so  sen- 
sible,  so  broad-minded,  so  philosophical,  so  noble  in 
his  nature,  that  he  saw  only  increasing  wisdom  in 
enlarged  experience  and  observation. 

He  was  so  simple,  so  child-like,  so  sincere,  that  it 
seemed  to  me  that  that  was  the  chief  reason  why  he 
was  so  little  appreciated  during  his    Presidency  by 


B  V  JOHN  B.   ALLE  Y.  577 

his  compeers  in  public  life.  He  exhibited  a  degree 
of  wisdom  and  firmness  of  purpose,  a  sagacity  and 
soundness  of  judgment  absolutely  without  parallel 
among  the  statesmen  of  his  day  ;  while  his  toleration 
of  difference  of  opinion,  his  sagacity  in  harmonizing 
discordant  elements  and  his  politic  treatment  of 
envious  and  ambitious  rivals,  exceeded  anything  I 
have  ever  seen  in  any  other  of  our  statesmen.  In 
illustration  of  this  I  may  say,  that  he  had  in  his 
Cabinet  several  rivals  in  whose  judgment  or  fitness 
he  had  but  little  confidence.  Yet  he  managed  to 
make  them  and  the  country  believe  that  he  was  on 
the  most  excellent  terms  with  each  and  all  of  them. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was,  as  a  whole,  the  most  unique 
character  in  all  history.  His  quaint  ways,  humorous 
stories,  always  pertinent  and  illustrative  of  a  point 
and  frequently  furnishing  in  themselves  a  conclusive 
argument,  made  him  an  enigma  to  many  people,  even 
to  those  who  knew  him  well  and  considered  them- 
selves fully  competent  to  judge  and  measure  him. 

In  small  and  unimportant  matters,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  so  yielding  that  many  thought  his  excessive 
amiability  was  born  of  weakness.  But,  in  matters  of 
vital  importance,  he  was  as  firm  as  a  rock.  Neither 
Congress  nor  his  Cabinet  could,  in  the  slightest  de- 
gree, influence  his  action  on  great  questions,  against 
the  convictions  of  his  patriotic  judgment. 

Senator  Sumner  and  myself  called  upon  him,  one 
37 


578  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

morning,  to  urge  the  appointment  of  a  Massachusetts 
man  to  be  a  Secretary  of  Legation,  chiefly  upon  the 
ground  of  his  superior  qualifications.  We  urged  the 
appointment  somewhat  persistently,  but  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  emphatically,  "  No  ;  "  that  he  should  give  the 
place  to  an  applicant  from  another  State,  who  was 
backed  by  strong  influence,  although  he  acknowl- 
edged that  he  did  not  think  him  fit  for  the  position. 
We  were  naturally  indignant,  and  wished  to  know  if 
one  of  acknowledged  fitness  was  to  be  rejected  be- 
cause he  was  a  Massachusetts  man,  and  one  whom 
he  was  willing  to  say  was  not  fit,  was  to  be  appointed. 
"Yes,"  said  the  President,  "that  is  just  the  reason" 
— and  facetiously  added,  "  I  suppose  you  two  Mas- 
sachusetts gentlemen  think  that  your  State  could 
furnish  suitable  men  for  every  diplomatic  and  con- 
sulate station  the  Government  has  to  fill."  We 
replied  that  we  thought  it  could.  He  appeased  our 
displeasure  by  saying  he  thought  so  too,  and  that  he 
considered  Massachusetts  the  banner  State  of  the 
Union,  and  admired  its  institutions  and  people  so 
much  that  he  had  sent  his  "  Bob,"  meaning  his  son 
Robert,  to  Harvard  for  an  education.  He  said  he 
could  do  nothing  further  in  the  way  of  appointments 
for  Massachusetts,  because  he  could  not  afford  to  and 
she  did  not  need  it.  Massachusetts,  he  said,  was  in- 
telligent and  patriotic.  Her  people  would  do  right 
and  support  his  administration,  even  if  he  offended 


BY  JOHN  B.   ALLEY.  579 

scores  of  her  most  esteemed  public  men.  "  But,"  he 
added,  "not  so  with  this  other  State.  It  is  a  close 
State.  I  can  mention  half  a  dozen  of  her  public  men, 
Republicans,  who  have  influence  enough,  combined, 
if  I  should  seriously  offend  them,  to  carry  the  State 
over  to  the  other  side.  For  this  reason,"  he  con- 
cluded, "  I  cannot  afford  to  disregard  the  wishes  of 
these  men."  His  reasons,  together  with  his  shrewd 
compliment  to  Massachusetts,  restored  our  good 
humor,  and  we  went  away  satisfied. 

It  was  generally  believed  by  many  of  the  friends  of 
Mr.  Seward,  that  the  latter  ran  the  administration. 
Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  fact.  I  know,  of  my 
own  personal  knowledge,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would  not 
allow  Mr.  Seward  to  send  any  very  important  dis- 
patch to  England,  until  he  had  first  shown  it  to  Sen- 
ator Sumner,  who  was  chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Foreign  Relations.  Mr.  Lincoln  once  told  me 
that  he  had  the  greatest  confidence  in  the  judgment 
of  our  Massachusetts  Senator  in  everything  pertain- 
ing to  foreign  relations.  One  day  Mr.  Seward  wrote 
a  dispatch,  to  be  sent  to  England,  to  which  Mr, 
Sumner  strongly  objected.  Both  gentlemen  were 
summoned  to  the  White  House  with  the  dispatch. 
Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  it  must  not  be  sent.  He  took 
his  pen,  erased  a  portion  and  interlined  his  own 
words.  He  said  that  he  feared  a  war  with  England, 
should  the  dispatch,  as  first  written,  be  sent.      It  was 


580  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

sent  as  corrected  by  the  President.  I  was  told  of 
this  confidentially  at  the  time,  and  never  mentioned 
it  to  any  one  until  some  years  afterwards.  When 
Grant  was  President,  the  dispatch  was  discovered  in 
the  archives  of  the  State  Department  and  exhibited 
one  day  to  Grant  and  his  Cabinet  as  illustrative  of 
the  wisdom  of  Lincoln.  Grant  exclaimed,  "  What 
prudence  and  sound  judgment  this  incident  displays  !" 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  always  just  and  magnanimous. 
His  conduct  toward  Chief-Justice  Chase  was  an  exhi- 
bition of  magnanimity  and  freedom  from  all  revenge- 
ful and  petty  feelings,  seldom  animating  a  human 
bosom.  When  Mr.  Chase  was  dismissed — as  he  re- 
garded it — from  the  Cabinet,  he  visited  some  of  his 
old  friends  in  New  England — among  others,  myself. 
He  was  exceedingly  bitter  and  denunciatory  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  so  open  in  his  opposition  that  some  of 
his  friends  rebuked  him.  They  warned  him  that  it 
would  injure  his  chance  for  the  Chief-Justiceship. 
They  reminded  him  that  the  Republican  party  gen- 
erally looked  to  him  as  the  most  fitting  successor  of 
Chief- Justice  Roger  B.  Taney,  whose  health  was 
greatly  impaired,  and  who,  it  was  clearly  seen,  could 
not  long  survive.  In  a  few  weeks  Mr.  Taney  died, 
and  Mr.  Chase  became  a  prominent  candidate.  He 
expressed  an  ardent  desire  to  obtain  the  appoint- 
ment. Senator  Sumner  and  myself,  who  were  great 
friends  and  admirers  of  Mr.  Chase,  went  to  Wash- 


BY  JOHN  B.   ALLEY.  58  I 

ington  to  plead  with  the  President  in  his  behalf. 
We  found,  to  our  dismay,  that  the  President  had 
heard  of  these  bitter  criticisms  of  Mr.  Chase  upon 
himself  and  his  administration.  Mr.  Lincoln  uro;ed 
many  of  Mr.  Chase's  defects,  to  discover,  as  we  after- 
wards learned,  how  his  objections  could  be  answered. 
We  were  both  discouraged  and  made  up  our  minds 
that  the  President  did  not  mean  to  appoint  Mr, 
Chase.  It  really  seemed  too  much  to  expect  of  poor 
human  nature.  But  early  one  morning  I  went  to  the 
White  House,  found  the  President  in  his  library,  and 
was  cordially  received.  As  I  entered  he  made  to  me 
this  declaration  :  "  I  have  something  to  tell  you  that 
will  make  you  happy.  I  have  just  sent  Mr.  Chase 
word  that  he  is  to  be  appointed  Chief-Justice,  and 
you  are  the  first  man  I  have  told  of  it."  I  said : 
"  Mr.  President,  this  is  an  exhibition  of  magnanimity 
and  patriotism  that  could  hardly  be  expected  of  any 
one.  After  what  he  has  said  against  your  adminis- 
tration, which  has  undoubtedly  been  reported  to  you, 
it  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  you  would  bestow 
the  most  important  office  within  your  gift  on  such  a 
man."  His  quaint  reply  was  :  "  x'\lthough  I  may  have 
appeared  to  you  and  to  Mr.  Sumner  to  have  been 
opposed  to  Chase's  appointment,  there  never  has 
been  a  moment  since  the  breath  left  old  Taney's  body 
that  I  did  not  conceive  it  to  be  the  best  thing  to  do 
to   appoint    Mr.  Chase  to   that  high   office  ;   and  to 


582  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

have  done  otherwise  I  should  have  been  recreant  to 
my  convictions  of  duty  to  the  Republican  party  and  to 
the  country."  I  repeated  again  my  sense  of  his  mag- 
nanimity and  his  patriotism  in  making  the  appoint- 
ment. He  replied  :  "  As  to  his  talk  about  me,  I  do 
not  mind  that.  Chase  is,  on  the  whole,  a  pretty  good 
fellow  and  a  very  able  man.  His  only  trouble  is 
that  he  has  'the  White  House  fever'  a  little  too 
bad,  but  I  hope  this  may  cure  him  and  that  he  will 
be  satisfied." 

An  instance  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  great  firmness  and 
sagacity  was  exhibited  when  all  the  Republican  sen- 
ators, save  one,  voted  to  appoint  a  committee  to 
wait  upon  the  President  and  ask  for  the  dismissal 
of  a  member  of  his  Cabinet,  believing  and  alleging 
his  disloyalty  to  the  administration.  He  gave  no 
heed  to  their  request,  but  afterwards  remarked,  that 
he  could  take  care  of  a  secret  enemy  in  his  Cabinet, 
if  he  had  one,  a  great  deal  easier  than  he  could 
take  care  of  an  open  enemy,  if  he  was  a  man  of 
power,  outside  of  the  Cabinet.  Those  senators 
afterwards  saw  and  acknowledged  his  superior  wis- 
dom ;  but  it  was  a  fearful  thing  for  a  President  to 
disregard  the  unanimous  request  of  the  United 
States  Senate. 

No  man  was  ever  more  thoroughly  imbued  with 
the  conviction  of  the  wickedness  and  cruelty  of 
slavery  than  Mr.   Lincoln.     He  who  had  ''Charity 


BY  JOHN  B.  ALLEY.  583 

for  all  and  malice  toward  none,"  could  not  overlook 
and  forgive  the  slave-trader.  While  I  was  in  Con- 
gress, a  petition  was  sent  me  from  the  city  of  New- 
buryport,  in  my  district,  numerously  signed,  praying 
the  President  to  pardon  a  man  in  jail  in  that  city. 
He  had  been  convicted  of  commanding  a  vessel 
engaged  in  the  slave-trade,  and  was  sentenced  to 
several  years'  imprisonment  and  a  fine  of  one  thou- 
sand dollars.  He  had  served  out  his  term  of  im- 
prisonment, but  could  not  pay  his  fine.  The  petition 
was  accompanied  by  a  letter,  from  the  prisoner,  to 
the  President,  and  by  a  request  that  I  would  present 
the  petition  and  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln  in  person. 
The  letter  contained  an  urgent  and  pathetic  appeal 
for  pardon,  acknowledging  the  crime  and  the  justice 
of  the  sentence,  and  declaring  that  he  must  spend 
his  life  in  prison  if  the  condition  of  freedom  was  the 
payment  of  that  fine,  for  he  had  not  a  cent  in  the 
world.  The  President  read  the  letter  and  petition, 
and  remarked  :  "  I  believe  I  am  kindly  enough  in 
nature  and  can  be  moved  to  pity  and  to  pardon  the 
perpetrator  of  almost  the  worst  crime  that  the  mind 
of  man  can  conceive  or  the  arm  of  man  can  exe- 
cute ;  but  any  man,  who,  for  paltry  gain  and  stimu- 
lated only  by  avarice,  can  rob  Africa  of  her  children 
to  sell  into  interminable  bondage,  I  never  will  par- 
don, and  he  may  stay  and  rot  in  jail  before  he  will 
ever  get  relief  from  me." 


584  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

He  was  so  kind-hearted  and  lenient,  and  virtually 
set  aside  so  many  sentences  of  courts  martial,  that 
the  commanding-  generals  remonstrated  very  often, 
insisting  that  he  was  ruining  the  discipline  of  the 
army. 

I  never  asked  him  to  pardon  a  soldier  or  to 
release  one  from  the  army,  for  good  cause,  that  he 
did  not  do  it.  On  one  occasion  I  was  at  the  White 
House  and  in  the  ante-room  were  scores  of  people 
waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  obtain  admission  to 
see  the  President.  At  the  end  of  the  room  sat  a 
gray  headed  old  man  upon  the  window  seat,  sobbing 
as  though  his  heart  would  break.  Moved  by  com- 
passion I  asked  him  what  his  trouble  was.  He  said 
that  his  darling  boy,  19  years  of  age,  was  sentenced 
to  be  shot,  and  he  had  been  waiting  two  days  to  see 
the  President  but  could  not  get  in,  and  to-morrow 
noon  the  boy  was  to  be  shot.  I  asked  him  to  fol- 
low me,  saying  that  I  would  take  him  in  to  see  the 
President.  He  told  his  story  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  who 
replied  with  much  feeling  that  he  could  not  do  it, 
for  the  commanding  general  had  just  telegraphed 
him  from  Fortress  Monroe,  where  the  boy  was, 
imploring  him  to  cease  interfering  with  the  sen- 
tences of  courts  martial.  But  the  abundant  tears 
and  imploring  looks  of  the  old  man  were  too  much 
for  the  kind-hearted  President.  He  said,  "  Let  the 
generals    telegraph,   if  they  please,  but   I   am  going 


BY  JOHN  B.   ALLEY.  585 

to  pardon  that  young  soldier."  He  immediately 
sent  a  dispatch  to  suspend  the  execution  of  the  sen- 
tence until  further  orders  from  him.  Thereupon  the 
old  man  burst  out  crying  afresh,  and  in  a  tremu- 
lous voice  said,  "  Mr.  President,  that  is  not  a  par- 
don, it  only  asks  for  a  suspension  until  further 
orders  from  you."  "  My  dear  man,"  exclaimed 
Mr.  Lincoln,  "  if  your  son  lives  until  I  order  him 
shot,  he  will  live  longer  than  ever  Methusaleh  did." 
The  old  man  departed.  Invoking  blessings  upon  the 
head  of  the  good  President. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  thorough  and  most  adroit 
politician  as  well  as  statesman,  and  in  politics  always 
adopted  the  means  to  the  end,  fully  believing  that 
in  vital  issues,  "  success  was  a  duty." 

In  further  illustration  of  this  feeling  and  senti- 
ment, I  need  only  refer  to  his  action  and  conduct 
in  procuring  the  passage  of  the  constitutional 
amendment  abolishing  slavery.  It  required  a  two- 
thirds  vote  of  Congress  to  enable  the  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  to  be  sent  to  the  legislatures 
for  ratification,  and  there  were  two  votes  lacking  to 
make  two-thirds,  which,  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "  must  be 
procured."  Two  members  of  the  House  were  sent 
for  and  Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  those  two  votes  must 
be  procured.  When  asked,  "  How?"  he  remarked: 
"  I  am  President  of  the  United  States,  clothed  with 
great  power.     The  abolition  of  slavery  by  constitu- 


586  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tional  provision  settles  the  fate,  for  all  coming  time, 
not  only  of  the  millions  now  in  bondage,  but  of 
unborn  millions  to  come — a  measure  of  such  impor- 
tance that  those  two  votes  must  be  proc2ired.  I  leave 
it  to  you  to  determine  how  it  shall  be  done  ;  but 
remember  that  I  am  President  of  the  United  States, 
clothed  with  immense  power,  and  I  expect  you  to 
procure  those  votes."  These  gentlemen  under- 
stood the  significance  of  the  remark.  The  votes 
w^ere  procured,  the  constitutional  amendment  was 
passed  and  slavery  was  abolished  forever. 

Some,  I  know,  would  criticise  Mr.  Lincoln's  meth- 
ods. But  he  was  a  thorough  politician,  and  believed 
most  fully  that  in  this  case  the  consequences  result- 
ing from  his  action  justified  him  in  resorting  to 
almost  any  means  to  procure  for  that  down-trodden 
race  such  a  boon. 

He  never  failed  in  obtaining  a  confirmation  by 
the  Senate  of  any  of  his  nominations,  or  in  carrying 
through  Congress  any  measure  that  he  cared  much 
about.  He  used  his  patronage  where  he  thought  it 
"would  do  the  most  good,"  in  accomplishing  the 
object  desired,  if  that  object  was  an  important  one 
to  the  country. 

One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  greatest  weaknesses  seemed 
to  be  in  being  more  or  less  oblivious  to  the  faults  of 
dear  friends.  Once  he  made  an  exceedingly  obnox- 
ious nomination  for  a  United  States  Judgeship.     A 


BY  JOHN  B.   ALLEY.  587 

large  majority  of  the  Senate  were  indignant  and 
opposed  to  the  nomination.  The  nominee  was  a 
very  old  friend  of  the  President  and  he  was  deter- 
mined to  have  him  confirmed.  A  distinguished 
senator  told  me  that  the  Senate  would  never  vote 
to  confirm.  I  replied,  "  You  do  not  know  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. He  greatly  desires  the  confirmation,  and  it 
will  be  done."  "  Never,  never,"  said  he.  But  he  was 
confirmed,  and  Senator  Sumner  was  the  only  one 
who  spoke  against  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  though  not  parsimonious,  was  a 
frugal  man,  He  told  me  that  when  he  came  to 
Washington,  he  was  worth  about  $15,000.  When 
he  died,  his  administrator.  Judge  Davis,  said  that 
he  left  about  $75,000,  being  one  of  the  very  few 
Presidents  who  went  out  of  the  office  as  well  off  as 
when  they  went  in. 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  claim  to  be,  and  was  not,  an 
orator  in  the  highest  sense,  yet  he  was  a  powerful 
and  persuasive  speaker,  a  good  lawyer  and  great  ad- 
vocate. Judge  Richardson,  of  Illinois,  a  democrat 
of  democrats,  himself  a  great  debater,  as  the  records 
of  both  houses  of  Congress  show,  told  me  that  he 
met  Lincoln  once  in  the  conflict  of  debate  upon  the 
stump,  and  he  said  that  Lincoln  annihilated  him, 
and  he  regarded  him  as  the  ablest  debater,  with 
perhaps  a  single  exception,  that  ever  trod  the  soil  of 
Illinois. 


588  REMINISCENCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

He  was  anxious,  as  the  time  for  his  re-election 
was  approaching,  that  that  element  of  the  demo- 
cratic party  which  rendered  us  such  powerful  aid  in 
the  war,  should  be  represented  on  the  National 
ticket.  Therefore  the  second  place  on  the  ticket 
was  offered  to  General  Butler,  but  he  declined,  unless 
the  President  would  agree  to  die  in  three  months 
after  his  inauguration.  It  was  then  offered,  at  Mr. 
Lincoln's  request,  to  Andrew  Johnson,  a  pretty  poor 
selection  as  compared  with  that  venerable  patriot 
and  statesman,  Vice-President  Hannibal  Hamlin. 

Mr.  Lincoln  personally  told  me  that  General  Scott 
was  responsible  for  the  appointment  of  General 
McClellan  to  the  head  of  the  army — entirely  so. 
He  himself  was  not  a  military  man — did  not  pretend 
to  be — and  yet  I  never  found  any  one  of  the  leading 
generals,  or  any  civilian,  who  had  such  a  clear  and 
accurate  knowledge  of  all  the  movements  of  the 
army,  and  who  conceived  and  understood  so  per- 
fectly their  strategic  movements. 

He  was  in  no  sense  a  brilliant  conversationalist, 
yet  he  was  so  logical  in  his  discourse  and  his  illus- 
trations were  so  pertinent,  that  he  always  com- 
manded the  attention,  and  seldom  failed  to  excite 
the  admiration  of  his  listeners.  In  conversation  with 
some  of  the  most  eminent  senators  during  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's administration,  it  was  remarked  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  said  some  things  which  exhibited  more  pro- 


BY  JOHN  B.   ALLEY.  589 

found  thought,  more  intellectual  grasp  and  niore 
power  of  statement  than  anything  that  had  ever 
been  said  by  mortal  man.  Mr.  Lincoln's  Gettysburg 
speech,  all  must  admit,  is  a  demonstration  of  this 
statement. 

He  was  an  exceedingly  patient  and  even-tempered 
man.  I  have  often  seen  him  placed  in  the  most  pro- 
voking and  trying  positions,  and  never  but  once 
knew  him  to  lose  his  temper.  That  was  the  day 
after  he  had  received  very  bad  news  from  the  army. 
A  couple  of  office-seekers  who  knew  him  well, 
intercepted  him,  on  his  way  from  the  White  House 
to  the  War  Department,  and  teased  him  for  an 
office  which  he  told  them  he  could  not  give.  They 
persisted  in  their  importunity  until  it  was  unbeara- 
ble. The  President,  evidently  worn  out  by  care  and 
anxiety,  turned  upon  them,  and  such  an  angry  and 
terrific  tirade,  against  those  two  incorrigible  bores,  I 
never  before  heard  from  the  lips  of  mortal  man. 

Mr.  Lincoln  greatly  deplored  the  indiscriminate 
abuse  of  public  men.  The  effect  of  which  was  to 
keep  out  of  the  public  service  many  sensitive  men, 
who  were  able,  patriotic  and  wise.  I  told  him  an 
anecdote,  once,  told  me  by  one  of  Daniel  Webster's 
most  intimate  and  cherished  friends.  Mr.  Webster 
was  accused  of  using  the  secret  service  money  of 
the  State  Department  for  his  own  private  use  while 
Secretary  of  State,  and  a  committee  of  investigation 


590  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

was  appointed — at  the  head  of  which  was  Jefferson 
Davis.       The    committee  exonerated   Webster,   and 
Mr.    Davis    related  of    John    Quincy    Adams,    that 
Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Webster  at  that  time  were  very 
hostile    to    each    other  and    were  not    on    speaking 
terms.       He    said    Mr.    Adams    came    to    him    and 
begged  him  not  to  allow  any  political    or  personal 
hostility  to    influence   him  to    taint  the   reputation, 
in  the  slightest  degree,  of  Mr.   Webster,  unless  the 
proof  was  of  the  most  positive  character — for,  said 
he,  Mr.  Webster  is  a  very  great  man,  of  world-wide 
renown,   and    to  taint    his    reputation    would  be  an 
irreparable    injury  to    the  nation.       The  glory   and 
wealth  of  a  nation  consists  not  in  its  material  inter- 
ests   so    much    as    in    the    name    and    fame    of    her 
distinguished  and  great  men.     The  chief  glory  and 
wealth   of   England    consisted   in  the  great  historic 
names  of  which  she  was  so  justly  proud.      Mr.  Lin- 
coln exclaimed,  "  How  just,  noble  and  patriotic  such 
sentiments  were — and  oh!"  said  he,  "if  the    Press 
of  this  country  could  be  made  to  inhale  something 
of  this  spirit  of  patriotism  and  fairness — what  would 
I  not  give  ?  " 

In  his  religious  views,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  very 
nearly  what  we  would  call  a  freethinker.  While  he 
reflected  a  great  deal  upon  religious  subjects,  he 
communicated  his  thoughts  to  a  very  few.  He  had 
little  faith  in  the  popular  religion  of  the  times.      He 


BY  JOHN  B.   ALLEY.  59 1 

had  a  broad  conception  of  the  goodness  and  power 
of  an  overruHng  Providence,  and  said  to  me,  one  day, 
that  he  feh  assured  the  author  of  our  beinor,  whether 
called  God  or  Nature,  it  mattered  little  which,  would 
deal  very  mercifully  with  poor  erring  humanity  in 
the  other,  and  he  hoped  better,  world.  He  was  as 
free  as  possible  from  all  sectarian  thought,  feeling  or 
sentiment.  No  man  was  more  tolerant  of  the  opin- 
ion and  feelings  of  others  in  the  direction  of  relig- 
ious sentiment,  or  had  less  faith  in  religious  dog- 
mas. By  many  people  he  was  thought  to  be  a 
spiritualist.  This  was  very  far  from  being  true. 
At  the  time  he  lost  his  little  son,  to  whom  he  was 
greatly  attached,  Mrs.  Lincoln  sought  consolation 
and  comfort  from  the  spiritualists,  and  I  think  she 
did  believe  in  spiritualism.  It  is  probable  that  the 
frequent  visits  of  spiritualists  at  the  White  House, 
which  the  President  permitted  chiefly  as  a  matter  of 
consolation  to  Mrs.  Lincoln,  were  the  cause  of  the 
circulation  of  such  a  report.  While  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  perfectly  honest  and  upright,  and  led  a  blame- 
less life,  he  was  in  no  sense  what  might  be  consid- 
ered a  religious  man.  His  morality  was  of  the 
highest  type.  He  was  truly  good  as  he  was  truly 
great. 

Wonderful  man  !   I  never  expect  to  look  upon  thy 
like  again  ! 

JOHN    B.    ALLEY. 


XXXIII. 

Thomas  Hicks. 

WHEN    the    news    of    Mr.    Lincoln's    nomina- 
tion    reached     the     City    of    New    York,    a 
leading    publishing    house    engaged    me    to    go    to 
Springfield    to    paint    a    portrait    of    him,    a    litho- 
graph   of    which   was    to    be    used    in    the    coming 
campaign.     A  day  later,    I  happened    to  be   in   the 
editorial    rooms  of    the    New  York    Tribune,   when 
Horace   Greeley   returned    from    the   Chicago  Con- 
vention.     As    he    entered,    stained    with    the    dust 
and    grime    of    travel,    the    staff    crowded    around 
him    in    great    excitement    to    hear    from    him    the 
details  of  the  Convention.      While  he  was  relating 
some  of   the  stirring   incidents    of    that   memorable 
day,  he  took,   from    the   side   pocket  of   his  coat,  a 
wood-cut   which    appeared     like    a   caricature    of   a 
very  plain   man,  and   holding   it    up,  that   all  might 
see  it,  he  said,  with  an  air  of  triumph  :    "  There,  I 
say,  that  is  a  good  head  to  go  before  the  people  ; " 
and  we  all   agreed   that   it  was.      This   picture   had 
been  made  quickly,  when  Mr.  Lincoln's  chances  for 
the  nomination   became   probable,  and  was  roughly 
done  ;  but  it  suggested  a  man  of  strong  character. 
38 


594 


REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


After  the  excitement  had  somewhat  quieted,  I  told 
them  I  was  commissioned  to  paint  a  portrait  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  and  Mr.  Dana  kindly  gave  me  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  Mr.  Herndon,  of  Spring- 
field, who  was  a  former  partner  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

With  Dana's  letter,  my  luggage  and  my  paint- 
ing traps,  I  left  New  York  on  Friday  evening 
and  arrived  at  Chicago  Monday  morning,  and  was 
disappointed  to  find  that  there  was  no  train  to 
Springfield  before  five  in  the  afternoon ;  but  the 
day  was  serene,  and,  as  I  was  strolling  by  the  lake, 
I  saw  many  newly-arrived  Swedes,  scattered  in 
groups  of  men,  women  and  children,  who  were 
washing  their  clothes  in  the  lake,  after  the  long 
and  dreary  voyage.  These  emigrants,  as  they 
worked  in  the  broad  sunlight  against  the  blue 
water,  with  their  sunburnt  faces  and  their  native 
costumes,  were  very  picturesque,  and  I  could  not 
resist  the  temptation  of  making  some  hurried 
sketches  of  them. 

After  an  entertaining  and  delightful  day,  at  five 
o'clock,  I  took  the  night  train  for  Springfield,  where 
I  arrived  at  daylight ;  and  having  ascertained,  at  my 
hotel,  that  Mr.  Herndon  lived  quite  out  of  the 
town,  after  breakfastinor,  I  went  in  search  of  him, 
and  found  him  working  among  the  flowers  in  the 
garden  in  front  of  his  house.  I  gave  him  Mr. 
Dana's  letter,  which  seemed  to  please  him,  and  he 


BV   THOMAS  HICKS.  595 

asked  many  questions  about  his  friend  Dana  and 
other  friends  in  the  East.  As  the  sequel  to  our 
pleasant  conversation,  he  courteously  invited  me  to 
take  a  family  breakfast  with  him,  which  I  had  to 
decline ;  we,  however,  arranged  that  he  should  call 
at  my  hotel  at  nine  o'clock,  and  go  with  me  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  office,  which  I  found  was  in  a  building  in 
proximity  to  the  State  House. 

Herndon  came  in  due  time  ;  and  when  I  stood  in 
the  presence  of  a  tall,  gaunt  man,  with  a  pleasant 
expression  on  his  well-marked  features,  and  had  a 
genial,  hearty  hand-shake  from  his  long,  swinging 
arm,  I  saw  that  in  my  subject  there  was  plenty  of 
character  with  which  to  make  a  desirable  likeness. 
When  he  had  read  Dana's  letter,  which  explained 
the  object  of  my  visit,  he  said:  "Yes,  I  will  do  in 
this  matter  what  my  friends  in  New  York  wish  of 
me  ;  and  I  am  much  obliged  to  you,  sir,  for  coming 
so  far  to  paint  my  likeness  for  them."  He  then 
asked  me  if  I  wanted  a  particular  kind  of  light  for 
my  work.  There  was  a  very  suitable  light  in  his 
office,  and  it  was  quickly  arranged  that  I  should  do 
my  work  there,  and  that  he  should  give  me  sittings 
from  eight  to  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  at  any 
time  during  the  remainder  of  the  day  when  he  was 
not  too  much  engaged.  In  an  hour  I  had  the  easel 
up  and  had  commenced  the  first  sitting.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was    already  taking    an    interest  in    the  work ; 


59^  REMlNISCENCkS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

and,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  sitting,  during  which  I 
had  made  the  usual  charcoal  sketch,  looking  at  it, 
he  said,  "  I  see  the  likeness,  sir." 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  given  up  his  law  practice,  that  he 
might  devote  his  time  to  the  campaign.  From  ten 
o'clock  in  the  morning  till  four  in  the  afternoon,  he 
had  many  visitors,  most  of  whom  were  from  the 
Northern  and  Western  States.  Many  of  them  were 
strangers  who  came  to  pay  their  respects  to  him, 
and  others  came  to  re-establish  old  friendships  or  to 
strengthen  new  ones ;  but  all  were  delighted  to  listen 
to  his  quaint  remarks  and  humorous  stories. 

During  one  of  the  usual  sittings  a  gentleman 
from  Massachusetts  called,  and,  introducing  himself, 
said,  he  was  on  his  way  to  St.  Louis  and  had 
stopped  over  at  Springfield  to  pay  his  respects  to 
the  future  President.  Mr.  Lincoln  asked  his  guest 
many  questions,  concerning  the  prospects  of  Repub- 
lican success  in  the  Eastern  States,  and  got  from 
him  very  hopeful  answers.  Alluding  to  the  portrait 
in  progress,  he  remarked  :  "  I  suppose,  Mr.  Lincoln, 
you  have  to  give  a  good  deal  of  your  time  to  this 
kind  of  work."  Mr.  Lincoln  said,  "  No,  this  is  the 
first  time  that  I  have  had  this  specific  sort  of  picture 
made,  but  I  have  had  the  sun  pictures  made  several 
times."  On  the  office  wall  was  hanging  a  very  dark 
photograph  with  a  light  background,  and  his  guest 
from   the  East  said,    "  I   see  a   photograph    of   you 


BY    THOMAS  HICKS.  597 

there,"  pointing  to  the  one  on  the  wall,  "but  it  does 
not  appear  to  have  any  sun  in  it."  "  No,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  with  his  peculiar  smile,  "  Parson  Brownlow 
says  I  am  a  nigger ;  and  if  he  had  judged  alone 
from  that  picture,  he  would  have  had  some  ground 
for  his  assertion." 

I  found  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  temper  was  even,  his 
voice  mild  and  persuasive,  and  that  the  habit  of  his 
inind  was  to  advise,  rather  than  to  rebuke,  which 
was  exemplified  in  the  following  incident.  My 
color  tubes  were  on  a  table  at  the  side  of  the  room. 
One  day  Mr.  Lincoln's  little  son.  Tad,  with  a  com- 
panion, came  noiselessly  into  the  office.  His  father 
was  sitting  at  his  desk  with  his  back  to  them,  and  so 
absorbed  that  he  did  not  hear  them  come  in.  I  was 
busy  with  the  portrait.  The  little  fellows  got  among 
my  paints.  They  took  the  brightest  blue,  yellow 
and  red.  Then  they  squeezed  from  a  tube,  into 
their  little  palms,  a  lot  of  the  red,  and  smeared  it  on 
the  wall  ;  then  they  took  the  blue  and  smeared  that 
in  another  place,  and  afterward  they  smeared  the 
yellow.  I  saw  their  excitement  and  mischief  from 
the  beginning,  but  held  my  peace  and  enjoyed 
watching  the  enthusiastic  young  colorists,  as  they 
made  their  first  effort  in  brilliant  wall  decoration, 
while,  getting  the  paint  all  over  their  hands,  their 
faces  and  their  clothes,  the  little  fellows  were  as  still 
as  mice.      At   this  juncture   of  affairs,  Tad's  father 


598  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

turned  in  his  chair  and  saw  their  condition  and  what 
they  had  done.  He  said,  in  the  mildest  tone  and 
with  the  greatest  affection,  "  Boys  !  boys !  you 
mustn't  meddle  with  Mr.  Hicks's  paints  ;  now  run 
home  and  have  your  faces  and  hands  washed ;  "  and 
the  little  fellows  took  his  advice  and  left  the  office 
without  a  word.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  often  silent  and 
thoughtful,  but  he  never  wore  a  frown,  and  I  loved 
him  from  my  first  day  with  him. 

One  morning,  when  he  was  giving  me  an  unusu- 
ally early  sitting,  two  tall,  handsome,  young  men 
came  into  the  office  without  announcing  their  names. 
Mr.  Lincoln  shook  hands  with  them  in  his  hearty, 
welcoming  way,  and  asked  them  to  sit  opposite  to 
him,  "so  that,"  as  he  put  it,  "the  gentleman  can  go 
on  with  his  work."  He  began  to  talk  to  his  young 
visitors  about  the  weather,  which  was  very  fine  just 
at  that  time.  He  asked  them,  when  they  came  to 
Springfield  ?  How  the  crops  were  their  way  ?  and 
many  other  questions,  getting  only  monosyllabic 
answers.  Then  there  was  a  long  pause,  and  I  saw 
that  he  was  puzzled.  Finally,  he  broke  the  silence 
by  saying :  "  The  folks  are  all  well  ?  "  One  of  the 
young  men  said  :  "  Mother  is  not  well,  and  she  sent 
us  up  to  inquire  of  you  how  the  suit  about  the  Wells 
property  is  getting  on."  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  the  same 
even  tone  of  voice  with  which  he  had  asked  the 
questions,  said  :  "  Give  my  best  wishes  and  respects 


BY   THOMAS  HICKS.  599 

to  your  mother,  and  tell  her  that  I  have  so  many 
outside  matters  to  attend  to  now,  that  I  have  put 
that  case  and  others  in  the  hands  of  a  lawyer  friend 
of  mine,  and  if  you  will  call  on  him  (giving  name 
and  address)  he  will  give  you  the  information  you 
want."  After  they  had  gone,  I  said  :  "  Mr.  Lincoln, 
you  did  not  seem  to  know  the  young  men?"  He 
laughed  and  said,  "  No,  I  had  never  seen  them  be- 
fore, and  I  had  to  beat  about  the  bush  till  I  found 
who  they  were.  It  was  uphill  work,  but  I  topped  it 
at  last."  Then  visitors  came  in  and  the  sitting 
closed  for  the  morning. 

As  the  work  on  the  portrait  advanced,  Mr.  Lincoln 
became  more  and  more  interested  in  its  progress. 
At  one  time  he  said,  "  It  interests  me  to  see  how,  by 
adding  a  touch  here  and  a  touch  there,  you  make  it 
look  more  like  me.  I  do  not  understand  it,  but  I 
see  it  is  a  vocation  in  which  the  work  is  very  fine." 
I  said,  "  That  is  the  reason  why  painting  is  called 
one  of  the  fine  arts."  He  said,  "  I  once  read  a  book 
which  gave  an  account  of  some  Italian  painters  and 
their  work  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and,  taking  the 
author's  statement  for  it,  they  must  have  had  a  great 
talent  for  the  work  they  had  to  do."  Then  visitors 
claimed  his  attention  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 

Once,  during  a  sitting,  I  asked  Mr.  Lincoln  how 
he  first  heard  the  news  of  his  nomination.  He  said, 
"  There  were  a  dozen  or  twenty  of  us  in  the  tele- 


600  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

graph  office,  and  we  were  receiving  dispatches  from 
the  convention  every  few  minutes,  and  as  they  came 
the  operator  handed  them  to  me  to  read  to  those 
present.  Then  one  came  announcing  that  my  name 
was  before  the  convention,  but  I  had  no  idea  that 
there  was  any  chance  of  my  nomination.  However, 
the  next  dispatch  brought  the  report.  I  couldn't 
read  this  one  to  them,  so  I  said,  there  is  a  httle 
woman  down  at  the  house  who  will  be  interested  in 
this,  and,  handing  them  the  dispatch,  I  left  them  to 
discuss  it  among  themselves  ;  and  this  is  the  way  I 
first  ofot  the  news." 

The  Republican  State  Convention  was  over,  and 
Richard  Yates  had  received  the  nomination  for  gov- 
ernor. He  was  frequently  in  the  office  consulting 
with  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  politics  of  the  State,  and  it 
was  a  streak  of  good  luck  for  Yates  that  he  had  for 
his  adviser  a  man  so  wise,  discreet  and  determined. 
The  Democratic  State  Convention  was  in  session 
the  week  I  was  in  Springfield,  and  an  interesting 
episode  it  was.  After  the  daily  adjournments  the 
delegates  used  to  come  in  squads  of  ten  or  twenty 
to  pay  their  respects  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  the  odd 
thing  about  these  calls  was,  that,  in  shaking  hands 
with  him,  they  invariably  addressed  him  as  Mr. 
President.  Some  of  them,  more  familiar  than 
others,  before  the  interview  was  over,  would  end  by 
calling  him  Abe. 


BV    THOMAS  HICKS.  6oi 

The  final  adjournment  of  the  Democratic  State 
Convention  recalls  an  incident  which  occurred  on 
the  night  train  from  Springfield  to  Pittsburgh,  on 
my  return  East.  Many  of  the  delegates  who  were 
going  to  attend  the  Democratic  National  Conven- 
tion to  be  held  in  Baltimore  took  the  train  in  which 
I  was.  They  were  a  noisy  crowd,  mostly  occupying 
one  car,  and  it  was  evident  that  they  intended  mak- 
ing a  night  of  it.  I  had  placed  in  charge  of  the 
porter  of  the  sleeper,  the  box  containing  the  por- 
trait, and  he  had  locked  it  in  a  small  room  at  the  end 
of  the  car.  I  turned  into  my  section  and  was  soon 
asleep.  Some  time  in  the  night,  I  was  awakened  by 
the  loud  talking  of  several  men,  and  I  heard  one  of 
them  say  to  the  porter :  "  We  hear  that  there  is  in 
this  car  a  picture  of  Abe  Lincoln,  and  it's  no  use 
talking  any  more  about  it,  we  mean  to  have  it 
trotted  out."  The  porter  said :  "  It  is  locked  up 
and  the  gentleman  has  the  key."  "Well,"  said  he, 
"  where  is  the  man  who  has  the  key  ?  "  The  porter 
had  betrayed  me,  and  the  men  came  to  my  berth. 
I  feigned  sleep.  One  of  them  shook  me,  saying, 
"  Here,  mister — I  say,  wake  up  !  wake  up  !  There  is 
a  lot  of  us  in  the  other  car,  and  we  want  to  see  Old 
Abe's  picture,  and  the  man  there,"  pointing  to  the 
porter,  "  says  you've  got  the  key,  and  you  had  bet- 
ter let  us  have  it  just  as  quick  as  you  can,  for  we 
are    bound    to    have    some    fun  out  of  it  to-niofht." 


602  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

Said  I,  "  Neighbor,  I  am  very  tired  and  sleepy,  and  I 
wish  you  would  go  away.  I  have  not  got  the  key, 
and,  if  you  will  go  away  now,  we  will  talk  about  see- 
ing the  picture  in  the  morning."  With  a  parting 
word  to  the  porter,  which  I  did  not  catch  the  import 
of,  they  left  the  car.  In  the  morning  I  saw  nothing 
of  the  delegates  to  the  Baltimore  Convention,  and 
the  box  was  not  opened  till  it  reached  my  studio  in 
New  York. 

The  portrait  was  finished  ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
taken  great  interest  in  its  progress  and  had  ex- 
pressed himself  as  pleased  with  the  result.  He  said, 
"  It  will  give  the  people  of  the  East  a  correct  idea 
how  I  look  at  home,  and,  in  fact,  how  I  look  in  my 
office.  I  think  the  picture  has  a  somewhat  pleas- 
anter  expression  than  I  usually  have,  but  that,  per- 
haps, is  not  an  objection." 

Mrs.  Lincoln  was  to  have  come  to  the  office  to 
see  the  portrait,  but  on  the  day  appointed  it  was 
very  rainy,  so  I  had  it  taken  to  the  house.  It  was 
carried  to  the  drawing-room,  where  I  put  it  in  a 
proper  light  to  be  seen,  and  placed  a  chair  for  Mrs. 
Lincoln.  Sitting  down  before  it,  she  said,  "  Yes, 
that  is  Mr.  Lincoln.  It  is  exactly  like  him,  and  his 
friends  in  New  York  will  see  him  as  he  looks  here 
at  home.      How   I   wish   I   could  keep  it,  or  have  a 

copy  of  it." 

The  residence  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  Springfield  was  a 


A.    IJNCOI.N. 
IKU.M    AN    OiUGIXAL    PAINTING    UY    THOMAS    HICKS. 


BV    THOMAS  niCKS.  603 

two-story  wooden  house,  with  an  extension  at  the 
rear,  and  was  painted  in  quiet,  neutral  tints.  It 
stood  in  the  angle  of  two  streets  in  the  suburbs  of 
the  town,  with  a  yard  on  each  side  of  it,  with  shade 
trees.  There  was  an  air  of  domesticity  about  it 
which  suggested  a  peaceful  and  happy  home. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  large  number  of  acquaintances 
with  whom  he  was  more  or  less  intimate,  men  who 
respected  him  and  whom  he  respected.  But  the  one 
man,  in  those  days,  who  was  always  with  him,  with 
whom  he  advised,  in  whom  he  confided,  with  whom 
he  talked  over  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
in  its  relations  to  slavery,  the  condition  of  the  South, 
and  the  mutterings  of  the  slave-owners,  whose  views 
accorded  with  his  own,  whom  he  held  by  the  hand  as 
a  brother,  was  O.  H.  Browning,  of  Quincy.  The 
future  President  cracked  his  jokes  and  told  inimit- 
able stories,  by  way  of  illustrating  some  question  or 
argument,  with  a  hundred  men,  during  the  week  I 
was  there,  and  always  in  his  quaint  way,  with  apt- 
ness and  an  abundant  good-humor.  But  when  he 
and  Browning  were  alone  together,  they  discussed 
with  thoughtful  consideration  many  events  which 
might  occur,  among  which  were  the  threatening  of 
an  unnecessary  civil  war,  the  cruelties  of  which,  for- 
tunately, could  not  be  foreseen,  in  those  peaceful 
days,  by  his  friends  and  neighbors  in  the  quiet  town 
of  Springfield.      But   Mr.  Lincoln  had  intuitively  be- 


604  REMINISCENCES  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

gun  to  face  the  future  and  to  brace  his  nerves  for 
the  impending  conflict.  The  subjects  of  these  fre- 
quent conferences  between  the  coming  man  and  his 
friend,  though  vaguely  outHned  at  the  time,  were 
not  merely  speculative,  but  they  were  prophetic  ; 
and,  from  the  day  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  inauguration  to 
the  day  of  his  death,  he  saw  these  anticipations  ful- 
filled in  all  the  horrors  of  a  fratricidal  war. 

Seeing  Mr.  Lincoln  under  a  variety  of  circum- 
stances and  in  the  intimate  relation  of  the  sitter  and 
the  painter,  I  observed  the  leading  traits  of  his  char- 
acter. But  when  I  saw  him  in  Washington,  three 
years  later,  the  elements  which  I  had  studied  in  our 
intercourse  at  Springfield,  and  others,  newly  devel- 
oped, were  so  broadened  and  sharpened  by  the 
great  events  of  the  time,  both  of  success  and  disaster, 
that  he  seemed  almost  transfigured  by  the  change. 

Dining  with  Mr.  Herndon  toward  the  last  days  of 
my  stay  in  Springfield  and  talking  of  our  subject,  I 
asked  about  his  courage ;  he  answered  me  by  saying, 
"  Lincoln  never  had  any  personal  fear,  and  he  has 
the  courage  of  a  lion.  In  the  old  political  struggles 
in  this  State,  I  have  seen  him  go  upon  the  platform, 
when  a  dozen  revolvers  were  drawn  on  him,  but  be- 
fore he  had  spoken  twenty  words  they  would  go 
back  into  the  pockets  of  their  owners ;  and  such  were 
the  methods  of  his  eloquence  that,  likely  as  not, 
these  men  would  be  the  first  to  shake  hands  with  him 


BY    THOMAS  HICKS. 


605 


when  he  came  among  them  after  the  meeting.  Lin- 
coln is  a  number  one  man  in  every  way.  But  he  was 
not  my  first  choice  for  president.  Theodore  Parker 
was  my  first  choice,  and  what  a  splendid  president  he 
would  have  made." 

The  sittings  for  the  portrait  were  concluded,  and 
the  likeness  was  approved  by  the  family  and  the 
towns-people.  While  it  was  still  on  exhibition  in  Mr. 
Lincoln's  office,  Mr.  Browning  placed  in  my  hand  the 
subjoined  letter : 

.^Jt^-z^-^^'     '^--e-'*-^^^     ^<>iy1i^<-^>^      "^^ 


-.^--C-C^^        C^^'—Zt^^ 


6o6  REMINJSChNCES   OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


<:2<>-^^L-^t--^-<^  ^^^  7^i:^^^^^^^^^<'^<-'<^^^^^,^^^ 


^^ 


<a- 


When  the  portrait  was  ready  for  transportation,  I 
went  to  say  good-bye,  and  to  thank  Mr.  Lincoln  for 
his  kindness  in  giving  to  me  so  much  of  his  time. 
He  said,  "  I  have  been  interested  in  the  painting, 
and  I  appreciate  the  desire  of  my  Eastern  friends 
to  have  my  portrait,  and  I  am  glad  that  you  were 
selected  to  make  the  likeness,  as  it  gives  great 
satisfaction."  Thanking  him  for  his  kind  words,  I 
then  said,  "  Mr.  Lincoln,  you  are  to  be  the  next 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  the  people  will 
want  a  picture  of  your  birthplace.  If  you  will  tell 
me  where  it  is,  we  will  not  trouble  you  again  about 
it,"  handing  him,  at  the  same  time,  a  small  memoran- 
dum-book. He  took  the  little  book,  and,  while  hold- 
ing it  in  his  hand,  an  expression  came  on  his  face, 
for  half  a  moment,  which   I   had  not  seen  there  be- 


BV    THOMAS  HICKS. 


607 


fore.  It  was  a  puzzled,  melancholy  sort  of  shadow 
that  had  settled  on  his  rugged  features,  and  his  eyes 
had  an  inexpressible  sadness  in  them,  with  a  far-away 
look,  as  if  they  were  searching  for  something  they 
had  seen  long,  long  years  ago:  then,  as  quickly  as  it 
came,  that  expression  vanished,  and,  with  a  pencil  he 
wrote  afterward  in  the  little  book  : 


-  ■■- - - -- '      /? •"  ■- 


. ^^Q/^;^.T™-*>a>!..„.Cfi^1!;?:>.^ 


ci^--i^rt'ii^i-j(^----a^^^ 


MEMORANDA. 


.c^v,«^ 


3 


(^i. 


u^    _ 


So,   no  one  knows   his  birthplace  ;  but   countless 

thousands    followed   him   toward  his  grave,  and  we 

all  know  where  he  lies  buried. 

THOMAS  HICKS. 


BIOGRAPHICAL     SKETCHES 


BIOGRAPHICAL     SKETCHES. 


General  (J.   S.   Grant. 

This  famous  soldier  is  one  of  the  few  great  historical  personages  who 
lived  in  comparative  obscurity  until  he  was  forty,  a  period  Victor  Hugo 
describes  as  the  "old  age  of  youth."  Grant  was  born  at  Mount  Pleas- 
ant, Ohio,  April  23,  1822.  He  left  West  Point  in  1843,  and  joined  the 
Fourth  Infantry  as  second  lieutenant.  He  served  under  General  Taylor 
on  tlie  Rio  Grande,  in  1846,  and  took  part  in  the  battles  of  Palo  Alto. 
Resaca  de  la  Pal  ma,  and  Monterey.  He  served  also  under  Scott  before 
Vera  Cruz,  and  participated  in  every  engagement  between  that  city  and 
Mexico.  He  received  honorable  mention  in  dispatches,  and  promotion 
for  gallant  conduct  at  Molino  del  Rey  and  Chapultepec.  He  left  the 
army  in  1854  and  settled  in  St.  Louis.  Not  being  successful  there,  even 
according  to  his  modest  ambition,  he  went  to  Galena,  Illinois,  and 
struggled  against  fortune  in  obscurity  till  the  war  broke  out,  when 
he  offered  his  services  to  the  government.  The  first  success  that 
brought  him  to  the  notice  of  his  superiors  was  the  capture  of  Belmont, 
Mo.,  and  the  ne.\t  was  the  capture  of  Fort  Donelson.  The  fall  of  this 
stronghold  acted  as  a  flash  of  light  thrown  across  the  path  of  the 
National  Government  in  its  darkest  hour,  and  Grant  was  thanked  by 
Congress  and  promoted  to  the  rank  of  major-general  of  volunteers. 
After  this  came  the  capture  of  Vicksburg,  a  great  militar>' achievement, 
and  all  eyes  were  turned  upon  the  rising  and  always  successful  general. 
His  promotion  was  rapid  and  deserved.  Victory  followed  victory,  and 
grade  followed  grade,  in  regular  order,  until  the  obscure  Galena  tanner 
commanded  a  million  men,  and  Appomattox  crowned  his  combinations. 


6l2  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

The  most  brilliant  campaign  of  Grant  was  the  series  of  strategic  move- 
ments by  which  Johnston  and  Pemberton  were  defeated  in  detail  behind 
Vicksburg,  and  the  fortress  was  finally  captured.  But  the  act  of  con- 
ciliation toward  the  South,  when  he  met  her  military  representative  in 
the  person  of  Lee  at  Appomattox  Court-House,  is  that  which  throws 
most  luster  on  his  character,  and  most  endears  his  memory  to  civilization. 
He  was  elected  President  in  1868,  and  again  in  1872.  He  made  the 
tour  of  the  world  in  1877,  and  was  received  everywhere  by  the  people 
with  enthusiasm,  as  the  representative  of  successful  democracy,  and  by 
their  rulers  with  marked  distinction.  In  1884  he  contracted  a  painful 
and  dangerous  throat  disease,  and  this,  added  to  great  financial  dis- 
asters which  overtook  him  a  year  later,  broke  him  down  completely. 
He  died  at  Mount  McGregor  on  the  23d  July,  1885,  and  was  mourned 
by  the  whole  American  people — North  and  South — as  a  man  was  never 
mourned  before.  His  last  days  were  dedicated  to  a  sacred  service, 
the  compiling  of  his  military  memoirs  with  the  purpose  of  securing  a 
competency  for  his  family  after  his  death.  It  is  satisfactory  to  know 
that  his  most  sanguine  wishes  in  that  regard  were  realized. 


II. 

Elihu   B.   Washburne. 

Mr.  Washburne,  of  Illinois,  is  a  native  of  Livermore  (in  Oxford 
County),  Maine,  and  worked  on  a  farm  until  sixteen  years  of  age.  He 
then  passed  two  years  in  a  printing  office,  to  learn  the  art  of  printing 
and  the  newspaper  business.  The  last  year  he  spent  in  the  ofifice  of 
the  Kennebec  Journal,  the  leading  Whig  organ  in  the  State  of  Maine, 
then  edited  and  published  by  the  Hon.  Luther  Severance,  subsequently 
a  Member  of  Congress  from  the  Kennebec  District,  and  Commissioner  to 
the  Sandwich  Islands.  Mr.  Washburne's  health  failing,  he  was  obliged 
to  abandon  the  newspaper  business.  He  then  prepared  himself  at 
the  Maine  Wesleyan  Seminary  for  the  study  of  the  legal  profession. 
On  concluding  his  preliminary  studies,  he  entered  the  law  ofifice  of 
Hon.  John  Otis,  of  Hallowell,  Maine,  subsequently  Member  of  Congress. 

After  pursuing  his  studies  in  the  office  of  Mr.  Otis  for  two  years,  Mr. 
Washburne  entered  Harvard  Law  School,  where  he  graduated  in  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  613 

spring  of  1840,  and  was  admitted  to  the  Massachusetts  bar.  In  March, 
1840,  he  emigrated  to  the  West,  and  located  at  Galena,  Illinois,  in  April 
of  that  year.  In  1844,  he  was  elected  a  delegate  to  the  National  Whig 
Convention  at  Baltimore,  which  nominated  Mr.  Clay.  In  1846,  he  was 
appointed  by  Governor  Ford,  of  Illinois,  prosecuting  attorney  for  the 
Joe  Davies  County  Court,  which  office  he  held  for  two  years.  In  1852, 
he  was  again  sent  to  the  National  Whig  Convention  held  at  Baltimore, 
which  nominated  General  Scott.  In  November  of  the  same  year  he  was 
elected  to  Congress,  as  a  Whig,  from  the  First  Congressional  District  of 
Illinois.  He  was  subsequently  re-elected  as  a  Republican  for  eight  con- 
secutive terms.  He  resigned  his  seat  after  entering  upon  his  ninth 
term,  to  become  Secretary  of  State  in  the  first  Cabinet  of  General  Grant. 
Mr.  Washburne  was  in  the  House  of  Representatives  during  the  whole 
time  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  President,  and  the  most  intimate  and  con- 
fidential relations  always  existed  between  them.  General  Grant  ap- 
pointed him  Minister  to  France.  Presenting  his  letters  of  credence  to 
the  Emperor  on  the  23d  of  May,  1869,  Minister  Washburne  continued 
to  occupy  his  position  until  the  fall  of  the  Empire,  September  4,  1870, 
and  after  that  acted  as  Minister  to  the  Provisional  Government  of  the 
National  Defense,  and  subsequently  the  French  Republic.  On  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Franco-German  war,  at  the  request  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  North  German  Confederation,  and  with  the  consent  of 
the  French  Government  as  well  as  his  own,  he  took  under  his  protec- 
tion, as  American  Minister,  the  subjects  of  the  North  German  Confed- 
eration then  residing  in  France.  He  was  subsequently  charged  with 
the  protection  of  the  subjects  of  Saxony,  Darmstadt,  and  Hesse  Grand 
Duchy.  He  remained  in  Paris  during  the  entire  siege,  and  the  days 
of  the  Commune,  and  during  that  time  was  charged  with  the  protection 
of  ten  other  nationalities  whose  representatives  had  fled  from  Paris.  He 
was  practically  the  German  Minister  in  France  for  eleven  months,  and 
in  constant  official  correspondence  with  the  Prince  de  Bismarck.  He 
received  the  warmest  thanks  from  the  German  Emperor  for  the  ser- 
vices he  had  rendered  to  his  subjects,  and  after  Mr.  Washburne  had 
retired,  the  old  Kaiser  presented  him  with  a  full-length  portrait  of 
himself  in  token  of  his  appreciation  of  the  services  he  had  rendered. 

Soon  after  the  election  of  Mr.  Hayes,  Mr.  Washburne  asked  for  his 
letters  of  recall,  after  a  service  of  eight  years  and  a  half,  a  longer  time 
than  the  position  had  ever  been  held  by  any  American  Minister.  On 
his  return  to  this  country,  in  the  fall  of  1877,  he  took  up  his  residence  in 
Chicago,  where  he  has  since  lived  as  a  private  citizen,  taking  no  part 
in  political  affairs,  but  devoting  himself  to  literary  pursuits. 


6 14  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETChES. 

III. 

George  W.  Julian. 


George  W.  Julian  was  born  near  Centreville,  Wayne  Co.,  Indiana, 
on  the  5tii  of  May,  1817.  His  parents  were  pioneer  settlers  of  the  State, 
and  his  only  educational  opportunities  were  such  common  schools  as  a 
frontier  settlement  afforded.  By  industry  and  perseverance  he  qualified 
himself  for  teaching,  and  followed  the  business  over  three  years,  after 
which  he  entered  upon  the  study  of  the  law,  and  was  admitted  to  the 
bar  in  1840.  He  began  his  political  life  a  Whig,  and  in  1845  ^''''^s 
chosen  a  representative  to  the  State  legislature.  Through  his  Quaker 
training  he  became  warmly  interested  in  the  slavery  question,  and  in 
1848  severed  his  party  relations,  and  was  sent  as  a  delegate  to  the 
famous  Buffalo  Convention  of  that  year,  giving  his  zealous  support  to 
Van  Buren  and  Adams.  In  1849,  he  was  elected  by  the  Free-soilers 
and  Democrats  of  the  Fourth  Indiana  District  as  a  member  of  the 
Thirty-first  Congress,  in  which  he  championed  the  homestead  policy 
and  signalized  his  hostility  to  the  famous  compromise  measures.  Owing 
to  the  reaction  which  followed  the  triumph  of  these  measures,  he  was 
not  returned  to  Congress  in  1851,  out  in  1852  the  Free-soil  National 
Convention,  which  met  in  Pittsburg,  nominated  him  for  Vice-President 
on  the  ticket  with  John  P.  Hale.  After  the  Whig  Party  disbanded,  he 
vigorously  opposed  the  Know-nothing  movement  which  followed,  and 
took  a  leading  part  in  the  formation  of  the  Republican  Party,  being 
chosen  a  delegate  to  its  first  national  convention,  at  Pittsburg,  in  1856, 
of  which  he  was  a  vice-president  and  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Organization.  In  i860,  he  was  re-elected  to  Congress,  and  remained 
there  till  March,  1871,  serving  ten  years  on  the  Committee  on  Public 
Lands,  and  eight  years  as  its  chairman.  He  was  also  a  member  of  the 
famous  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  of  the  Committee  on  Re- 
co:  struction,  of  the  committee  which  prepared  articles  of  impeachment 
against  Andrew  Johnson,  and  of  the  National  Committee  appointed  to 
convey  the  remains  of  President  Lincoln  to  Illinois.  Both  in  Congress 
and  out,  he  has  strenuously  opposed  the  monopoly  and  plunder  of  the 
public  domain.  He  pleaded  for  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war  and 
the  policy  of  striking  at  slavery  as  its  cause,  while  he  took  the  lead  in 
advocating  negro  suffrage  and  the  arming  of  the  blacks.  In  1868, 
he  proposed  a  constitutional  amendment  forbidding  the  denial  of 
the  ballot  to  any  citizen  on  account  of  race,  color  or  sex.  In  1872, 
he  joined  the  Liberal  Republican  movement,  and  zealously  supported 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  615 

Horace  Greeley  for  President.  While  always  maintaining  an  attitude 
of  party  independence,  he  has  taken  an  active  part  in  every  presidential 
campaign  since  that  date.  He  has  not,  however,  sought  any  office,  and 
his  later  years  have  been  mainly  devoted  to  literary  work.  A  volume 
of  his  speeches  was  published  in  1872,  and  in  1884  appeared  his 
"  Political  Recollections."  He  is  still  occasionally  heard  from  in  the 
magazines. 


IV. 

Reuben   E.  Fenton. 

Mr.  Fenton  was  born  in  Carroll,  Chatauqua  County,  N.  Y.,  on  the 
nth  of  July,  1819.  He  was  educated  at  Pleasant  Hill  and  Fredonia 
academies,  and  studied  law,  but  did  not  practice.  The  future  governor 
of  the  Empire  State  evinced  a  decided  taste  for  mercantile  pursuits,  and 
as  decided  a  distaste  for  legal  studies,  and  hence  became  a  merchant, 
and  a  very  successful  one,  while  still  comparatively  a  young  man.  He 
was  a  Whig  in  politics,  drifted  naturally  into  the  Republican  Party  on 
its  formation,  and  was  looked  upon  as  one  of  its  ablest  leaders  in  the 
State  of  New  York.  In  1857  he  was  elected  to  Congress,  and  was  re- 
peatedly re-elected  until  1864,  when  he  became  Governor  of  the  State, 
running  against  Horatio  Seymour.  He  was  re-elected  in  1866,  defeat- 
ing John  T.  Hoffman,  his  Democratic  opponent.  At  the  expiration  of 
his  second  term  as  governor,  he  was  elected  to  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  at  one  time  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  very  probable  candi- 
date for  the  Presidency.  Governor  Fenton  was  a  practical  speaker  and 
politician,  with  a  character  remarkable  for  its  masculine  simplicity  and 
executive  capacity.  He  was  among  the  warmest  friends  of  President 
Lincoln,  and  was  one  of  his  strongest  supporters,  in  and  out  of  Congress, 
in  bringing  the  war  to  a  successful  conclusion.  Mr.  Fenton  died  on 
the  22d  of  August,  1885. 


6l6  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

V. 

John  P.  Usher. 

John  P.  Usher  was  born  in  Brookfield,  Madison  County,  New  York, 
January  9,  1816.  His  descent  is  traced  from  the  first  settler  of  the  name 
of  Usher  in  America.  His  great-great-grandfather  was  John  Usher, 
Lieutenant  Governor  of  New  Hampshire,  under  Governor  Andros.  Mr. 
J.  P.  Usher,  the  subject  of  this  sketch,  was  admitted  as  an  attorney  in 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of  New  York,  January  18,  1839 ;  at  the 
same  time  he  was  admitted  as  a  soUcitor  in  the  Court  of  Chancery  iu 
that  State.  He  was  admitted  to  practice  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  in  1859.  In  1840  he  removed  to  Terre  Haute,  Indiana, 
and  practiced  his  profession  until  March,  1862,  when  he  was  appointed 
by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  be  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  He  was  for  a 
time  Attorney-General  of  the  State  of  Indiana,  appointed  by  Governor 
Morton.  Upon  the  resignation  of  Mr.  Caleb  B.  Smith  as  Secretary  of 
the  Interior,  President  Lincoln  appointed  Mr.  Usher  to  that  office, 
which  he  held  from  January  8,  1863,  to  May  15th,  1865,  having,  early 
in  the  month  of  March  previous,  given  his  resignation  to  Mr.  Lincoln, 
to  take  effect  on  the  15th  of  May.  Andrew  Johnson  was  President  dur- 
ing the  last  month  of  Mr.  Usher's  incumbency  of  the  office. 


VI. 

George  Sewall  Boutwell. 

George  Sewall  Boutwell  was  born  January  28,  181 8,  at  Brookline, 
Mass.,  in  the  house  upon  the  estate  now  known  as  Clyde  Park,  and 
occupied  by  the  Country  Club  of  Boston.  His  father,  Sewall  Boutwell, 
moved  to  Lanenburg,  Mass.,  in  the  year    1820. 

The  son  remained  upon  his  father's  farm  till  December,  1830,  when 
he  obtained  employment  in  a  country  store  in  the  village  where  he 
worked  till  December,  1834.  His  education  was  obtained  in  the  public 
schools  of  the  town.  After  passing  through  all  the  vicissitudes  incidental 
to  the  career  of  a  young  man  bound  to  win  fame  and  fortune  in  the  world, 
after  going  from  one  rung  of  the  ladder  to  another  ever  upward,  after 
having  been  elected  to  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  several  years,  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  617 

performing  many  honorable  duties,  he  was  elected  Governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts for  1851-2,  which  brought  him  under  the  full  glare  of  public 
light,  with  a  national  reputation.  The  degree  of  LL.D.  was  conferred 
upon  him  by  Harvard  University  about  this  time,  and  he  was  appointed 
one  of  the  trustees  of  that  famous  seat  of  learning  a  few  years  later. 

In  1855  Mr.  Boutwell  became  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Education,  and 
held  the  office  till  January  i,  1861.  In  1857  he  was  elected  a  member 
of  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  and  in  1861  he  was 
chosen  a  member  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, and  delivered  the  annual  oration. 

Mr.  Boutwell  was  a  delegate  to  the  Convention  that  nominated  Mr. 
Lincoln  for  the  office  of  President.  In  January,  1861,  he  was  appointed 
a  member  of  the  Peace  Congress.  In  June,  1862,  he  was  appointed  by 
President  Lincoln  a  member  of  a  commission  to  adjust  the  claims 
against  the  government,  arising  from  the  operations  of  General  Fremont 
in  Missouri  and  the  States  in  the  vicinity.  In  July  of  the  same  year  he 
was  appointed  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue,  and  organized  that 
oftice.  He  was  elected  to  Congress  in  November  of  that  year,  and  was 
re-elected  in  1864,  1866  and  1868.  Mr.  Boutwell  was  a  member  of  the 
Board  of  Managers  that  conducted  the  impeachment  of  Andrew  John- 
son. He  was  also  a  member  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  that  re- 
ported the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  He  drafted  and  reported  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  and 
conducted  the  debate  in  the  House  of  Representatives  upon  the  pas- 
sage of  the  resolution.  When  General  Grant  was  organizing  his  Cabinet 
in  February,  1869,  he  tendered  the  post  of  Secretary  of  the  Interior  to 
Mr.  Boutwell.  This  invitation  Mr.  Boutwell  declined,  preferring  to  re- 
main in  the  House.  Subsequently  General  Grant  tendered  him  the  office 
of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  This  position  he  declined  also,  but  the 
President  sent  his  name  to  the  Senate  notwithstanding  his  declination, 
and  in  March  Mr.  Boutwell  resigned  his  seat  in  the  House  and  entered 
upon  the  duties  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  In  the  autumn  of  1869 
he  drafted  the  bill  for  funding  the  public  debt,  which,  upon  his  recom- 
mendation, in  his  annual  report  for  that  year,  became  a  law  in  July,  1870. 

Mr.  Boutwell  resigned  the  office  in  March,  1873,  having  been  elected 
to  the  Senate  for  the  unexpired  term  of  Mr.  Wilson.  In  1877  President 
Hayes  tendered  him  the  appointment  of  Commissioner  to  revise  the 
Statutes  of  the  United  States.  The  work  was  completed  and  published 
in  1878.  In  1880  he  received  from  President  Hayes  an  appointment  as 
counsel  for  the  United  States  before  the  French  and  American  Claims 
Commission.  LTpon  the  death  of  Secretarj^  Folger,  in  1884,  President 
Arthur  tendered  the  Treasury  Department  to  Mr.  Boutwell.  This 
invitation  was  declined. 


6l8  BIOGKAPinCAL    SKETCHES. 

VII. 

General  Benjamin  Franklin  Butler, 

EX-GOVERNOR    OF    MASSACHUSETTS. 

This  distinguished  man— soldier,  lawyer,  statesman  and  orator— so 
remarkable  for  that  success  in  life  derived  from  consummate  energy  as 
well  as  ability,  was  born  at  Deerfield,  N.  H.,  on  the  5th  of  November, 
1818.  His  paternal  grandfather  was  an  officer  in  the  Revolutionary  War. 
Like  many  of  our  greatest  men,  his  path  in  early  life  was  beset  with 
difficulties  and  obstacles,  only,  however,  to  be  overcome,  until  he  re- 
ceived a  college  education,  and  in  1841  commenced  his  career  as  a 
lawyer  at  Lowell,  Mass.  Here  his  legal  ability  lifted  him  into  almost 
immediate  eminence.  He  practiced  at  the  bar  for  twenty  years,  chiefly 
in  criminal  cases,  and  during  that  time,  from  1841  to  1861,  was 
member  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  of  the  State  Senate,  and  of 
the  Constitutional  Convention  which  assembled  in  1853.  He  was  a 
Democrat,  and  advocated  the  nomination  of  Breckinridge  for  President. 
As  brigadier-general  of  the  Massachusetts  militia  he  marched  with  the 
Eighth  Regiment  to  Annapolis  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  brought  out 
the  frigate  Constitution^  and  was  placed  in  command  of  the  District  of 
Annapolis,  which  included  Baltimore.  He  was  promoted  to  major- 
general  of  volunteers  in  May,  1861,  and  placed  in  command  of  Eastern 
Virginia,  with  head-quarters  at  Fortress  Monroe.  It  was  here  that 
Butler  used  the  phrase  "contraband  of  war"  in  relation  to  slaves  who 
came  to  the  fort  for  protection — a  phrase  which  anticipated  the  Proc- 
lamation of  Emancipation,  and  has  passed  into  history.  General  Butler 
was  at  the  capture  of  Fort  Hatteras  and  Fort  Clark,  N.  C,  which  fell  on 
the  29th  of  August.  He  organized  an  expedition  against  New  Orleans,  and 
in  conjunction  with  Admiral  Farragut,  captured  Fort  Jackson  and  Fort 
St.  Phillip,  thus  forcing  the  surrender  of  the  city.  Butler  was  then  made 
military  governor.  His  rule  was  drastic.  He  maintained  order  with 
an  iron  hand,  subduing  even  disease  and  death  by  enforcing  cleanliness 
and  health. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1863,  General  Butler  was  in  command  of  the 
Army  of  the  James,  and  operated  against  Richmond.  He  intrenched 
himself  at  City  Point  and  Bermuda  Hundred,  from  which  he  assumed 
the  offensive  ;  but  having  been  attacked  at  Drury's  Bluff  on  the  i6th  of 
May,  1864,  and  forced  back  on  his  base,  he  was  obliged  to  act  on  the 
defensive  during  the  rest  of  the  campaign.     He  commanded  the  land 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  619 

forces  at  the  unsuccessful  assault  on  Fort  Fisher,  in  December,  1864. 
He  was  a  member  of  Congress  in  1868,  and  one  of  the  managers  in  the 
impeachment  trial  of  Andrew  Johnson.  General  Butler  was  elected 
Governor  of  the  Republican  State  of  Massachusetts  in  1883  on  the 
Democratic  ticket,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  whole  country.  He  re- 
ceived the  presidential  nomination  of  the  "People's  Party"  in  1884,  and 
was  at  one  time  hopeful  of  making  a  formidable  break  in  the  ranks  of 
the  old  political  parties.  With  Senator  Evarts,  ex-Senator  Conkling,  and 
other  famous  lawyers,  lie  has  since  been  engaged  in  the  celebrated 
Hoyt  will  case.  General  Butler  may  be  truly  described,  to  use  a  phrase 
of  Dickens  in  its  literal  sense,  as  "  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  in 
the  country." 


VIII. 

Charles  Carleton  Coffin. 

Mr.  Coffin,  war  correspondent,  author,  and  journalist,  is  descended 
from  a  Puritan  family  that  settled  in  Massachusetts  Bay  in  1642.  The 
homestead  occupied  by  the  original  Coffins  is  still  in  possession  of  their 
descendants,  after  nearly  two  centuries  and  a  half,  and  many  and  in- 
fluential are  the  men  in  the  Old  Bay  State  and  elsewhere  bearing  the 
cognomen  of  Coffin,  all  descended  from  the  Puritan  family  tiiat  left  Eng- 
land on  the  eve  of  the  struggle  between  Cromwell  and  Charles  I.  The 
author  of  this  sketch  is  grandson  of  the  Coffin  who  fought  in  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  whose  wife  was  worthy  to  be  the  mother  of  heroes.  He  was 
born  on  the  family  homestead  July  26,  1823,  a  year,  by  the  way,  that 
produced  many  of  the  great  names  that  figured  during  the  great  rebell- 
ion in  camp  and  Senate.  Young  Coffin  was  an  omnivorous  reader, 
and  though  the  delicate  state  of  his  health  prevented  his  education  in 
college,  he  succeeded  in  collecting  a  fund  of  information  that  served 
him  well  in  after-life.  While  undecided  as  to  his  future  occupation,  he, 
almost  without  knowing  whither  he  w^as  going,  drifted  into  journalism, 
and  became  one  of  the  most  famous  war  correspondents  evolved  from 
the  great  rebellion.  He  saw,  in  his  journalistic  capacity,  the  beginning 
and  the  end  ;  he  reported  Bull  Run,  and  four  years  later  he  witnessed  the 
crowning  victory  at  Five  Forks,  and  flashed  the  news  of  that  coup  de 
grace  all  over  the  country.  Mr.  Coffin  was  one  of  the  earliest  war  cor- 
respondents to  describe  the  fall  of  Charleston. 


620  BIOGRArillCAL    SKETCHES. 

After  the  w^x  he  went  to  Europe  and  traveled  extensively  as  corre- 
spondent for  the  Boston  Journal  and  other  papers.  He  delivered  an 
address  on  American  Common  Schools  before  the  Social  Science 
Congress  at  Belfast,  which  was  applauded  by  the  London  Times; 
saw  the  Austrians  evacuating  Italy  in  1859  ;  traveled  through  Greece, 
Asia  Minor,  India,  China  and  Japan,  and  arrived  home  via  San  Fran- 
cisco, in  1869.  Mr.  Coffin  is  the  author  of  Our  New  Way  Round  the 
World,  and  also  of  the  Seat  of  Empire,  Caleb  Crinkle  (a  story).  Boys  of 
'■/6,  Story  of  Liberty ,  Old  Times  in  the  Colonies,  Building  the  Nation, 
Life  of  Garfield.      He  is  now  engaged  on  a  history  of  the  Civil  War. 


IX. 

Frederick  Douglass, 

ORATOR    AND    JOURNALIST. 

The  most  remarkable  man  ever  born  of  the  African  race  in  this  coun- 
try during  the  existence  of  negro  slavery — a  man  who  owes  none  ot  his 
great  reputation  to  that  spirit  of  philanthropic  patronage  which  has 
done  more  than  their  own  natural  ability  to  render  other  men  of  his 
race  conspicuous  for  a  time — is  Frederick  Douglass,  who,  as  lecturer, 
agitator,  editor  and  author,  has  been  honored  for  iiis  character  and 
respected  for  his  genius  for  nearly  half  a  century. 

Frederick  Douglass  was  born  into  the  world  and  into  slavery  at 
Tuckahoe,  near  Easton,  Maryland,  of  a  white  father  and  black  mother. 
As  he  grew  up  he  seemed  to  learn  by  intuition  ;  for,  not  only  had  he  no 
teacher,  but  the  rules  of  the  plantation  forbade  a  slave  to  learn  even 
the  rudiments  of  education.  Away  from  the  jealous  eyes  of  the  over- 
seer he  taught  himself  to  read  and  write.  An  old  book,  a  scrap  of 
newspaper,  a  patent-medicine  almanac — everything  that  came  in  his 
way — he  devoured  with  avidity,  and,  before  he  realized  it  himself,  he 
possessed  an  education.  Until  the  age  of  ten  he  lived  on  the  plantation 
of  his  owner,  Colonel  Edward  Lloyd.  He  was  then  removed  to  Balti- 
more, where  he  lived  until  he  was  twenty-one,  when  he  fled  from  slav- 
ery. He  went  to  New  York,  thence  to  New  Bedford,  Massachusetts, 
and  in  both  places  worked  along  the  wharves  for  a  living,  and  in  vari- 
ous workshops,  where  his  strong  frame  and  deft  hand  rendered  his  serv- 
ices acceptable.     He  spoke  at   an   antislavery  meeting  held   at   Nan- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  62  I 

tucket  in  the  summer  of  1841,  and  his  eloquence  anil  ability  attracting 
the  notice  of  the  abolitionists,  he  was  soon  appointed  agent  of  the  Anti- 
slavery  Society  of  Massachusetts.  He  traveled  and  lectured  through 
the  North-eastern  States,  instructing  himself  meanwhile,  and  improving 
his  oratory.  He  published  an  autobiography  in  1845,  which  had  a  large 
circulation,  and  made  a  good  impression.  In  the  same  year  he  went 
to  Europe,  and  lectured  in  the  cities  and  most  of  the  large  towns  ot 
Great  Britain.  He  was  formally  manumitted  in  1846,  his  English 
friends  having  subscribed  $750  for  the  purpose.  Returning  to  the 
United  States  in  1847,  he  went  to  Rochester  and  began  the  publication 
there  of  a  journal  called  Frederick  Douglass's  Paper.  At  the  com- 
mencement of  his  public  career  he  was  a  Garrisonian  Disunionist ;  but 
later  he  took  the  ground  of  Sumner  and  others,  that  slavery  was  alto- 
gether illegal  and  unconstitutional.  In  1855  he  rewrote  his  biography 
under  the  title  of  My  Bondage  and  my  Freedom.  He  raised  colored 
troops  during  the  war,  lectured  and  labored  in  the  Union  cause,  and 
was  often  consulted  on  political  matters  by  President  Lincoln,  Secretary 
Stanton,  and  other  Republican  leaders.  He  edited  the  Washington 
N'ew  Era  in  1870,  and  continued  to  do  so  until  appointed  United  States 
Marshal  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  Since  then  he  has  written  and 
lectured  with  honor  and  profit,  and  now,  toward  the  close  of  a  useful 
life,  he  enjoys  a  well-earned  competence,  and  the  esteem  of  his  coun- 
trymen. 


X. 

Judge  Lawrence  Weldon. 

Judge  L.\wrence  Weldon  is  one  of  the  Judges  of  the  United 
States  Court  of  Claims,  having  been  appointed  to  that  position  in  No- 
vember, 1882,  by  President  Arthur.  He  emigrated  from  Ohio  upon  his 
admission  to  the  bar  in  the  year  1854,  and  became  acquainted  with 
Mr.  Lincoln,  with  whom  he  traveled  the  circuit  until  his  nomination 
for  the  Presidency  in  i860.  Judge  Weldon  took  an  active  part  in  the 
campaign  of  1858,  and  in  i860  was  one  of  the  Presidential  Electors 
on  the  Republican  ticket.  He  was  also  elected  to  the  legislature  in 
i860,  but  resigned  his  office  in  April,  1861,  to  accept  the  appointment 
of  United  States  Attorney  for  the  Southern  District  of  Illinois.  In  con- 
sequence of  the  war,  that  district  became  one  of  the  most  important  in 
the  United  States,  and  many  grave   responsibililit's  were   thrown  upon 


62  2  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

him  as  the  representative  of  the  government.  He  served  during  the 
administration  of  Mr.  Lincohi,  and  was  reappointed  by  President  John- 
son in  1865.  In  November,  1866,  he  resigned  his  position  as  United 
States  Attorney  for  the  purpose  of  engaging  in  the  general  practice  of 
his  profession.  In  1867  he  removed  from  Clinton,  111.,  to  Bloomington, 
where  he  continued  to  reside,  engaged  in  an  extensive  practice,  until 
his  appointment  in  1883  to  the  position  he  now  holds.  During  his  resi- 
dence in  Illinois  prior  to  1861,  he  was  on  ihe  most  intimate  personal 
relations  with  Mr.  Lincoln  both  at  the  bar  and  in  politics  ;  and  alter 
that  time  until  the  death  of  the  President  he  was  an  esteemed  visitor 
at  the  White  House. 

His  personal  relations  to  Mr.  Lincoln  both  before  and  after  his  elec- 
tion as  President  w-ere  cordial  and  intimate,  especially  at  that  period 
of  time  when  the  country  was  in  a  transition  state  from  the  old  Whig 
Party  to  the  new  Republican  Party,  which  entitles  his  article  as  to 
matters  of  that  period  to  peculiar  interest  and  respect. 


XI. 

Benjamin  Perley  Poore. 

Benjamin  Perley  Poore,  printer,  author,  editor,  correspondent,  ra- 
conieiir — a  man  who,  in  his  life,  has  played  many  parts,  and,  as  a  rule, 
always  played  them  well— was  born  in  Newburyport,  Essex  County, 
Massachusetts,  in  the  year  of  grace  1820,  and  was  reared  upon  "  Indian 
Hill  Farm,"  which  had  been  held  in  unbroken  succession  by  his  paternal 
ancestors  since  1650,  and  where  he  now  resides  when  "  at  home." 

At  the  age  of  seven  he  was  taken  to  the  District  of  Columbia  (the 
birth-place  of  his  mother),  where  much  of  his  long  and  stirring  life  has 
been  passed,  engaged  in  public  duties.  During  the  year  1831  Mr.  Poore 
accompanied  his  parents  to  Europe,  and  had  the  rare  pleasure  of  meet- 
ing such  representative  men  in  literature  and  patriotism  as  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  Thomas  Moore   and  General  Lafayette. 

Upon  his  return  from  abroad  he  was  placed  at  a  military  school,  but 
he  did  not  take  kindly  to  "  drill,"  either  physical  or  mental,  and  ran 
away.  Finding  employment  in  a  country  printing  office,  he  mastered 
the  mystery  of  printing.  When  his  father  discovered  him  he  persuaded 
him  to  study  the  law,  and  sent  him  to  Paris  to  prepare  himself  for  the 
New  Orleans  bar.     He  became  the  foreign  correspondent  of  the  Boston 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  623 

Atlas,  and  traveled  over  Europe,  Asia  Minor,  and  Lower  Egypt,  return- 
ing in  1847.  Since  then  he  has  been  the  Washington  correspondent  ot 
a  succession  of  Boston  papers,  and  since  1862  he  has  been  Clerk  ot 
Printing  Records  of  the  Senate,  editing  the  Congressional  Directory, 
the  Collection  0/  Colonial  aftd  State  Charters,  the  Catalogue  of  Govern- 
ment Publications  from  1776  to  1882,  and  contributing  to  the  leading 
magazines. 

His  Massachusetts  residence  is  a  quaint  reproduction  of  the  rural 
homes  of  Southern  England,  each  of  its  seven  successive  owners  having 
made  additions,  the  most  interesting  of  which  is  a  suite  of  rooms  exhib- 
iting a  tenement  of  the  Continental  period — hall,  parlor,  kitchen,  bed- 
room, to  which  are  added  a  weavingrroom  and  printing-office — all  fur- 
nished in  the  style  of '76,  with  the  weapons,  household  utensils,  clothing, 
china,  mechanics'  tools,  etc.,  of  the  period. 

The  collection  of  autographs  at  Indian  Hill  Farm  numbers  over  fifteen 
thousand  specimens.  There  is  also  a  rare  collection  of  war  autographs, 
Major  Poore  having  served  in  a  Massachusetts  regiment,  and  availed 
himself  of  every  opportunity  to  add  to  his  stock.  Having  attained  the 
highest  grade  in  Freemasonry,  he  has  collected  many  interesting  auto- 
graphs of  the  craftsmen,  including  an  original  poem  by  Brother  Robert 
Burns. 

Major  Poore  has  ever  been  an  ardent  lover  of  agriculture  and  a  suc- 
cessful worker  therein.  He  has  given  especial  study  to  forestry  and  the 
intricate  problems  of  culture  and  suitability  of  soil.  A  few  years  since 
his  efforts  were  acknowledged  by  the  giving  of  a  premium  of  one  thou- 
sand dollars  for  his  accomplishment  of  the  difficult  task  of  covering  a 
bleak  New  England  hill  with  flourishing  trees^an  undertaking  looked 
upon  as  quixotic — that  had  hitherto  baffled  all  skill  and  experience,  and 
been  voted  an  impossibility. 


XII. 

Titian  J.   Coffey. 

Titian  J.  Coffey,  son  of  a  leading  physician  of  central  Pennsylva- 
nia, was  born  in  Huntingdon,  in  that  State,  December  5th,  1824,  was 
admitted  to  the  bar  at  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  in  1845,  ^""Jt  returned  to 
Pennsylvania,  where  he   settled  and    practiced  law  with  success  until 


624  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

1861.  He  was  active  in  the  movement  which  founded  and  organized 
the  Republican  Party  in  Pennsylvania,  and  was  elected  to  the  Stale 
Senate  in  1856.  He  served  for  three  years  in  that  body,  and  among 
other  useful  and  important  matters  of  legislation  in  which  he  had  a  lead- 
ing part,  he  procured  the  enactment  ol  the  law  establishing  the  normal 
school  system  of  Pennsylvania,  his  report  in  favor  of  that  measure  being 
well  known  in  connection  with  the  literature  of  educational  legislation. 
He  was  the  first  to  introduce  and  advocate  the  now  generally  accepted 
reform  in  the  laws  of  evidence  which  allows  parties  to  suits  at  law  to 
be  examined  as  witnesses. 

For  professional  reasons  he  declined  a  re-election  to  the  Senate.  He 
engaged  actively  in  the  canvass  which  resulted  in  the  election  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  in  i860,  to  the  Presidency,  and,  in  March,  1861,  was  appointed 
Assistant  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States. 

In  this  office,  then  very  laborious  because  of  the  many  important  and 
difficult  questions  thrown  upon  the  Attorney-General  by  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion,  and  by  the  supervision  imposed  on  that  officer  over  the  sub- 
ordinate law  officers  of  the  Govfernment,  Mr.  Coffey  rendered  faithful 
and  effective  service.  Many  of  the  most  important  opinions  of  the  At- 
torney-General given  during  those  momentous  times  were  written  by 
him,  and  he  had  charge  of  the  cases  in  the  Supreme  Court  which  in- 
volved not  only  large  amounts  of  money,  but  many  of  the  questions 
underlying  the  methods  of  effective  prosecution  of  the  war  by  blockade 
and  capture  at  sea.  He  was  the  author  of  the  opinion  of  the  Attorney- 
General  which  declared  the  right  of  men  of  color  to  receive  full  pay  as 
officers  of  the  volunteer  forces  in  the  army.  This  was  the  first  official 
utterance  of  the  Government  which,  in  the  then  existing  legislation  of 
Congress,  placed  negroes  in  the  armed  service  of  the  United  States  on 
a  higher  footing  than  laborers  and  teamsters,  and  the  opinion  having 
been  called  for  by  the  United,  States  Senate,  on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Sum- 
ner, led  the  way  to  the  subsequent  legislation  which  placed  all  soldiers 
fighting  under  the  national  flag  on  a  common  footing.  Finding  the 
joint  labors  of  the  office  and  the  court  room  too  severe,  Mr.  Coffey  re- 
signed his  position  in  1864,  before  the  close  of  Air.  Lincoln's  first  term, 
and  was  placed  by  the  Attorney-General  in  charge  of  the  Government 
cases  in  the  Supreme  Court,  in  which  service  he  continued  for  two 
years,  when  he  returned  to  private  practice  in  that  court.  When  At- 
torney-General Bates  resigned  his  office,  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  second  elec- 
tion, he  urged  the  choice  of  Mr.  Coffey  as  his  successor,  in  which  he 
was  sustained  by  many  of  the  leading  Republicans  of  Pennsylvania,  but 
the  President,  recognizing  the  necessity  of  selecting  a  Cabinet  member 
from  the  South,  appointed  Mr.  James  Speed  of  Kentucky. 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES.  625 

In  1869,  as  Mr.  Coffey  was  preparing  to  visit  Europe  for  a  lengthened 
residence,  he  was  appointed  by  Gen.  Grant  Secretary  of  Legation  at  St. 
Petersburg.  He  accepted  the  position,  but  resigned  it  in  1870.  He 
traveled  extensively  in  Europe,  and  returned  to  the  United  States  and 
resumed  his  professional  work  in  the  Supreme  Court  at  Washington 
in  1873. 

He  still  resides  in  that  city,  having  retired  from  active  practice  at  the 
bar,  and  takes  no  part  in  politics  beyond  an  occasional  contribution  to 
the  press. 


XIII. 

Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher,  the  great  pulpit  orator  and  pastor  of 
Plymouth  Church,  member  of  a  family  famous  for  their  genius  and  their 
services  rendered  humanity,  was  born  in  Lichfield,  Ct.,  June  24,  1813. 
He  was  educated  at  Amherst  College,  and  studied  theology  under  his 
father,  the  Rev.  Lyman  Beecher,  a  man  who  in  his  day  was  almost  as 
well  known  and  esteemed  as  his  distinguished  son  is  in  ours.  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  was  settled  in  1837  as  a  Presbyterian  minister  at  Law- 
renceburg,  Indiana,  and  ten  years  later  became  pastor  of  Plymouth 
Church,  Brooklyn.  Having  for  years  taken  a  strong  stand  against 
slavery,  he  supported  the  government  with  all  his  force  when  the  war 
of  the  Rebellion  broke  out ;  and  in  England,  whither  he  went  in  1863, 
exerted  his  eloquence  in  vindication  of  the  policy  of  the  North  in  pre- 
serving the  Union.  At  the  request  of  the  government,  Mr.  Beecher  de- 
livered an  oration  at  Fort  Sumter  in  1865,  on  the  anniversary  of  its  fall, 
which  is  considered  a  masterpiece  of  eloquence.  Mr.  Beecher  is  not  a 
politician  in  the  common  acceptance  of  the  term,  but  when  the  occasion 
presents  itself— that  is  to  say,  when  great  national  interests  are  at  stake, 
or  great  principles  are  involved — he  throws  himself  with  all  his  energy 
into  the  contest,  in  the  advocacy  of  what  he  believes  to  be  the  right,  and 
with  voice  and  pen  renders  material  service  to  the  party  of  his  choice 
for  the  time  being.  Thus  in  1856  he  took  an  active  part  in  favor  of  the 
Republicans,  and  again  in  1884  entered  with  zest  into  the  struggle  for 
the  Presidency  on  the  side  of  the  Democrats,  and  was  one  of  the  most 
potent  factors  in  the  defeat  of  the  Republican  candidate.  Besides  oc- 
casional addresses,  he  is  the  author  of  Lectures  to  Young  Men  and 
the  Plymouth  Collection  of  Hymns.  He  is  one  of  the  founders  of 
40 


626  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

the  Indepettdent,  a  weekly  religious  paper  of  New  York  commanding 
large  influence.  Among  his  other  works  which  have  obtained  popularity 
are  the  Star  Papers,  two  volumes ;  fragments  from  his  discourses 
entitled  Life  Thoughts;  Notes  from  Plymouth  Pulpit;  Eyes  and 
Ears ;  Freedom  and  War;  Norwood,  a  Novel  of  New  Englatid 
Life,  and  two  volumes  of  sermons.  It  is  generally  conceded  that 
Mr.  Beecher  ranks  among  the  foremost  pulpit  orators  of  this  or  any 
age,  and  it  is  more  than  probable  that  when  the  animosities  which  have 
arisen  from  his  political  action  shall  have  passed  away  the  opinion  will 
be  universal. 


XIV. 

Hon.  William  Darragh  Kelley. 

Hon.  William  Darragh  Kelley,  lawyer,  politician  and  political 
economist,  was  born  in  Philadelphia  on  the  12th  of  April,  1814,  and  is 
grandson  of  Major  John  Kelley,  a  Revolutionary  officer  of  distinction 
belonging  to  Salem  County,  N.  J.  Losing  his  father  at  an  early  age,  he 
learned  the  business  of  jeweler,  which  he  followed  in  Boston  from  1835 
to  1839.  Taking  a  keen  interest  in  public  affairs,  and  developing  bright 
talents  as  a  political  writer  and  stump  orator,  Mr.  Kelley  allied  himself 
to  the  Democratic  Party  while  still  a  young  man,  and  attained  promi- 
nence in  its  councils.  Though  in  the  jewelry  trade,  he  did  not  neglect 
his  education,  and  never  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  he  was  intended  for 
the  bar,  to  which  he  was  called  in  1841.  He  practiced  in  his  native 
city,  was  elected  Attorney-General  of  Pennsylvania  in  1845,  and  was 
Judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  from  1 846  to  1 856.  About  this  time 
his  political  opinions  underwent  a  change,  and,  like  many  public  men 
of  the  period,  he  joined  the  new  Republican  Party  then  in  course  of 
formation.  In  1854  he  delivered  his  great  address  on  "Slavery  in  the 
Territories,"  which  placed  him  prominently  before  the  country  and 
gained  for  him  a  national  reputation.  He  was  delegate  to  the  National 
Republican  Convention  at  Chicago  in  1861,  was  returned  to  the  House 
of  Representatives  in  1861,  and  has  been  in  Congress  ever  since,  without 
intermission.  During  the  war  he  formed  one  of  that  body  which  never 
wavered  and  never  lost  hope  in  ultimate  national  triumph.  He  spoke 
well  and  frequently  on  the  conduct  of  the  war,  and  took  a  prominent 
part  in  the  acrimonious  debates  on  reconstruction  at  its  close.  It  is, 
however,  as  a  political  economist  and  an  authority  on  financial  questions 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  627 

Mr.  Kelley  has  chiefly  distinguished  himself,  especially  of  late  years. 
He  is  a  prolific  writer  of  pamphlets  and  magazine  articles,  all  containing 
useful  information.  He  is  at  present  the  senior  member  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  by  continuous  service. 


XV. 

Cassius  Marcellus  Clay. 

Cassius  Marcellus  Clay  was  born  October  19,  1810,  in  Madison 
County,  Kentucky.  His  father  (see  American  Cyclopcrdia)  was  General 
Green  Clay,  and  his  mother  Sally  Lewis,  of  Anglo-Scotch  ancestry.  The 
family  is  related  to  the  Clays  of  Virginia,  and  came  from  a  common 
stock,  being  descended  from  Sir  John  Clay,  of  Wales,  whose  three  sons 
came  over  with  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  His  grandmother  Lewis  was 
daughter  of  Edward  Payn,  honorably  mentioned  in  the  Life  of  Wash- 
ington. Mr.  Clay  received  a  complete  education  ;  his  mastery  of  the 
classics  and  languages  was  remarkable.  He  studied  respectively  in  the 
primitive  schools  of  Kentucky,  St.  Joseph's  Catholic  College  (where  he 
learned  French  from  Father  Fouche,  a  native  of  France),  Transylvania 
University,  Alabama  University,  and  finally  Yale  College,  whence  he 
graduated,  after  having  delivered  the  oration  on  Washington's  birthday, 
in  1832.  He  married  Mary  Jane  Warfield  on  returning  home  in  1833, 
and  a  year  or  two  later  plunged  into  the  stormy  sea  of  politics.  His  anti- 
slavery  opinions  were  pronounced.  He  was  a  delegate  at  the  Harris- 
burg  Whig  Convention,  and  supported  Clay  for  the  Presidency.  He 
started  the  Free  American  newspaper  in  Lexington,  which,  during  his 
illness,  brought  on  by  excitement,  was  removed  by  a  mob  to  Cincin- 
nati. On  his  recovery,  Clay  continued  the  editing  of  his  paper,  which 
though  published  in  Lexington  was  printed  in  Ohio. 

Clay  took  part  in  the  Mexican  War,  as  captain  of  a  company  of  Ken- 
tucky volunteers,  and  at  Saltillo,  through  disobedience  of  orders  on  the 
part  of  a  subordinate,  was  captured  by  3,000  Mexicans,  after  a  vigorous 
defense  by  himself  and  his  seventy  men.  On  returning  home  after  the 
war,  Clay  received  a  grand  ovation  and  became  very  popular.  He  car- 
ried Kentucky  for  Zachary  Taylor,  and  in  1850  was  threatened  with 
death  at  a  public  meeting  because  of  his  antislavery  views,  strongly 
expressed.  Nothing  but  his  record  and  popularity  saved  his  life  on 
that  occasion. 


628  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

The  same  year  he  was  assaulted  by  a  band  of  conspirators  led  by 
Cyrus  Turner,  and  was  dangerously  wounded ;  Turner,  however,  was 
killed.  Mr.  Clay  was  defeated  for  governor  of  the  State  in  1851,  joined 
the  Free-soilers,  opposed  Know-nothingism,  supported  the  candidature 
of  Fremont  in  1856  and  Lincoln  in  i860.  Refusing  the  Mission  to  Spain, 
he  was  sent  to  Russia  in  1861,  but  recalled  in  1862  through  Seward's 
intrigues.  He  returned  to  St.  Petersburg  in  1863,  and  was  given  the 
Russian  Mission  again  by  President  Grant.  He  supported  Tilden  in 
1876,  and  carried  Mississippi  for  him  by  35,000  majority,  composed  of 
whites  and  independent  blacks.  After  this  he  retired  from  public  life, 
but  last  year  canvassed  the  North  in  favor  of  the  Republicans  as  against 
a  "solid  South." 


XVI. 

Robert  G.   Ingersoll. 

This  distinguished  orator  was  born  in  Dresden,  New  York,  in  1833. 
His  parents  removed  to  Illinois  in  1845.  H^e  studied  law,  was  called  to 
the  bar  of  that  State,  and,  soon  after,  entered  political  life.  He  was 
nominated  for  Congress  in  i860,  but  was  defeated.  Entering  the  army 
in  1862,  as  colonel  of  a  cavalry  regiment,  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  the 
Confederates  after  a  short  service,  and  exchanged.  He  then  returned 
to  civil  life  and  the  practice  of  his  profession.  Giving  his  adherence  to 
the  Republican  Party,  he  has  since  acted  with  it,  and  has  always  been  one 
of  the  most  illustrious  of  its  champions.  He  was  made  Attorney-General 
of  Illinois  in  1868.  Though  for  years  recognized  as  an  eloquent  speaker, 
and  as  one  of  the  most  brilliant  political  orators  of  the  West,  it  was  not 
until  1876  that  his  reputation  as  an  orator  won  national  recognition. 
His  speech  nominating  Mr.  Blaine  for  the  Presidency,  at  the  Republican 
Convention  of  1876,  was  a  masterpiece  of  eloquence,  and  at  once  placed 
Mr.  Ingersoll  among  the  greatest  orators  of  the  age.  For  a  few  years 
past  he  has  not  taken  an  active  part  in  politics,  owing  to  the  demands 
made  on  his  time  by  his  professional  duties  and  the  numerous  calls  for 
his  services  as  a  lecturer.  On  the  platform  he  has  no  superior.  He  is 
an  agnostic,  and  attacks  the  established  creeds  of  Christendom  with  an 
unsparing  sarcasm,  yet  with  a  charm  of  style  and  affluence  of  humor 
that  win  the  unstinted  eulogiums  of  his  most  earnest  opponents.  He 
has  a  lucrative  practice  in  Washington  and  is  engaged  in  most  of  the 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  dlC^ 

celebrated  cases  of  the  capital  and  at  New  York.  Mr.  IngersoU  is  a 
man  of  fine  presence  and  gracious  manners,  and  is  the  center  of  a  host 
of  devoted  personal  friends. 


XVII. 

Absalom    Hanks   Markland. 

Absalom  Hanks  Markland  was  born  at  Winchester,  Clark  County, 
Kentucky,  P'ebruary  i8,  1825.  His  family  removed  to  Marj^sville,  Ken- 
tucky, in  1828,  where  he  was  educated  in  the  preparatory  schools  of 
that  place  until  he  entered  the  seminary  of  Rand  &  Richeson,  then  one 
of  the  most  favorably  known  educational  institutions  in  the  valley  of 
the  Mississippi.  Subsequently  he  was  a  student  at  Augusta  College, 
Kentucky. 

In  1842  he  became  identified  with  the  transportation  interests  on  the 
Western  lines,  in  which  he  continued  until  1848,  except  the  winter  of 
1843,  when  he  taught  school  at  Manchester,  Adams  County,  Ohio.  In 
1848  he  engaged  in  the  wholesale  mercantile  business  at  Paducah, 
Kentucky.  During  the  spare  hours  from  1842  to  1848  he  read  law  and 
wrote  for  the  press.  In  the  fall  of  1849  he  went  to  Washington  City, 
and  was  employed  there  as  a  clerk  in  the  Indian  and  Pension  offices,  at 
the  same  time  continuing  his  relations  with  the  Western  press.  He 
resigned  from  the  Pension  Office  in  July,  1852,  and  commenced  the 
practice  of  law.  In  December,  1857,  at  the  request  of  the  Hon.  Joshua 
H.  Jewett,  chairman,  and  every  member  of  the  committee  on  Invalid 
Pensions  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  he  accepted  the  clerkship  of 
that  committee  and  served  in  that  capacity  during  the  35th  Congress. 

He  was  an  advocate  of  the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln  to  the 
Presidency,  whose  confidence  he  possessed  after  the  inauguration  of 
March  4,  1861,  and  by  whom  he  was  tendered  offices  of  honor.  He  was 
appointed  a  special  agent  of  the  Post  Office  Department  in  1861,  and 
subsequently  became  the  officer  in  charge  of  the  mails  for  the  Army  of 
the  Tennessee,  then  commanded  by  General  Grant.  As  General 
Grant's  commands  were  extended  the  army  mail  service  was  extended, 
until  it  finally  all  came  under  the  charge  of  Col.  Markland.  He  was  com- 
missioned a  colonel  on  the  staff  of  General  Grant  in  November,  1863.* 

*  He  was  the  only  person  besides  President  Abraham  Lincoln  and  General  U.  S.  Grant 
who  ever  had  authority  to  pass  at  will  through  all  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  thereby 
showing  the  confidential  relations  between  the  President,  General  Grant  and  himself. 


630  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  he  was  sent  to  California  on  a  mission  connected 
with  the  postal  service,  which  was  accomplished  with  satisfactory  re- 
sults. He  resigned  from  the  public  service  in  1866  and  became  con- 
nected with  the  railroad  interests  of  the  South.  He  was  appointed  by 
President  Grant  Third  Assistant  Postmaster-General.  He  entered  upon 
the  duties  of  Assistant  Superintendent  of  Railway  Mail  Service  in  July, 
1869,  and  remained  on  that  duty  until  October,  1874,  since  which  time 
he  has  lived  a  retired  life,  by  reason  of  a  chronic  ailment. 


XVIII. 

Hon.  Schuyler  Colfax, 

EX-VICE-PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

Schuyler  Colfax,  born  in  New  York  City  on  March  23,  1823,  was 
grandson  of  the  General  William  Colfax  of  the  Revolutionary  War  who 
commanded  Washington's  Life  Guard.  Schuyler  Colfax  received  a 
common-school  education  necessary  for  the  mercantile  career  intended 
for  him,  but,  being  a  diligent  student  and  extensive  reader,  especially  of 
history  and  political  economy,  he  trained  himself  for  a  higher  sphere  in 
life,  and,  after  serving  as  clerk  in  a  commercial  house  for  three  or  four 
years,  removed  with  his  widowed  mother  to  Indiana  in  1838,  and  studied 
law.  They  were  stirring  times  when  he  entered  political  life,  and  as  the 
party  leaders,  always  on  the  lookout  for  talented  recruits,  perceived  in 
young  Colfax  oratorical  abilities  of  a  high  order,  he  did  not  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  obtain  political  preferment.  He  attached  himself  to  the  Whig 
Party,  and  in  1845  established  the  St.  Joseph  Valley  Register,  at 
South  Bend,  in  the  interest  of  the  Whigs,  and  conducted  that  paper 
with  rare  ability  until  1855.  He  was  elected  to  the  State  Constitutional 
Convention  in  1850,  and,  as  a  member  of  that  body,  opposed  the  clause 
prohibiting  free  colored  men  from  settling  in  the  State  of  Indiana.  He 
was  a  candidate  for  Congress  in  1851,  but  was  defeated.  He  was 
elected  in  1853  by  the  newly  formed  Republican  Party,  and  re-elected 
for  the  six  following  terms.  He  supported  Fremont  for  President  in 
1856,  and  in  Congress  made  so  powerful  a  speech  on  the  Kansas  ques- 
tion that  it  was  deemed  worth  circulation  in  pamphlet  form  throughout 
the  country  to  the  number  of  half  a  million.  He  was  made  Speaker  of 
the  38th  Congress  in  December,  1863,  was  re-elected  in  1865,  and  again 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  63 1 

in  1867.  He  was  nominated  for  Vice-President  of  the  United  States  by 
the  Republican  Convention  in  1868,  receiving  522  votes  out  of  a  total  of 
650  on  first  ballot,  and  in  March,  1869,  was  inaugurated  with  General 
Grant,  and  took  his  place  as  Speaker  of  the  Senate.  He  stood  for  re- 
nomination  in  1872,  but  was  beaten  by  Henry  Wilson  of  Massachusetts. 
Mr.  Colfax  was  implicated  in  the  charges  of  corruption  brought  against 
certain  members  of  Congress,  in  1873,  iri  connection  with  the  Credit 
Mobilier  scandal,  and  was  repeatedly  examined  before  the  Congres- 
sional Committee  appointed  to  investigate  the  matter  ;  but  the  Judi- 
ciary Committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives  brought  in  a  report  on 
February  24,  1874,  declaring  that  there  was  no  ground  for  his  impeach- 
ment. Mr.  Colfax  retired  from  public  life  soon  after,  and  died  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1884. 


XIX. 

Daniel  W.  Voorhees. 

Daniel  W.  Voorhees,  of  Terre  Haute,  was  born  in  Butler  County, 
Ohio,  on  the  26th  September,  1827,  was  graduated  from  the  Indiana 
Ashbury  University  in  1849,  studied  law,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  of 
Indiana  in  1851,  where  he  soon  acquired  considerable  practice.  He  took 
an  active  part  in  politics,  and  being  a  good  speaker  and  organizer,  soon 
obtained  prominence  as  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Indiana  democracy. 
He  was  appointed  United  States  District  Attorney  for  Indiana  in  1858, 
which  office  he  held  until  elected  to  the  Thirty-seventh  Congress.  He 
served  in  the  Thirty-eighth  and  Thirty-ninth  Congresses,  but  was  defeated 
for  the  Fortieth  by  his  Republican  opponent.  Again  he  contested  the 
district  for  the  Forty-first  Congress  and  was  successful.  He  served  in  the 
Forty-second,  was  defeated  for  the  Forty-fifth,  but  soon  after  succeeded 
Oliver  P.  Morton,  Republican,  as  United  States  senator.  He  was  subse- 
quently elected  to  the  Senate  by  the  Legislature  for  the  long  term,  and 
again  in  1884,  when  he  was  mainly  instrumental  in  carrying  Indiana  for 
the  Democrats,  thus  securing  his  own  seat  in  the  Senate  for  another 
term.  He  has  taken  a  prominent  part  in  the  debates  in  Congress  dur- 
ing the  past  quarter  of  a  century. 


632  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

XX. 

Hon.  Charles  Anderson  Dana, 

EX-ASSISTANT    SECRETARY    OF    WAR. 

Mr.  Dana  was  born  at  Hillsdale,  New  Hampshire,  on  the  8th  of 
August,  1819.  He  was  sent  to  Harvard  University  at  the  age  of  seven- 
teen, but,  owing  to  an  affection  of  the  eyes,  was  obliged  to  discontinue 
his  studies.  He  was  one  of  the  members  of  the  Brooke  Farm  Socialistic 
Community,  established  near  Boston  about  forty  years  ago,  and  was  on 
the  editorial  staff  o^  i\\e  Harbinger,  ?i  socialistic  journal  started  to  advo- 
cate the  views  of  Fourier.  Mr.  Dana  joined  the  staff  of  the  Tribune  under 
Horace  Greeley  in  1847,  and  was  sent  to  France  as  correspondent  of 
that  journal  at  the  outbreak  of  the  revolution  which  drove  Louis  Philippe 
from  the  throne  in  1848.  Returning  to  New  York,  he  became  manag- 
ing editor  of  the  Tribune,  and  so  continued  till  the  close  of  1861,  when 
the  famous  "On  to  Richmond  "  article,  followed  closely  by  the  Bull  Run 
disaster,  led  to  a  disagreement  with  Horace  Greeley,  and  Dana  resigned. 
He  was  soon  after  appointed  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  the  duties  of 
which  office  he  conducted  with  great  ability.  During  one  of  the  gloomy 
periods  of  the  war,  when  Grant  was  rising  into  fame  and  usefulness, 
but  was  checked  by  red  tape  and  misapprehension,  Dana  was  sent  to 
see  that  general  and  report  upon  him.  He  did  so,  the  result  being 
that  Grant  was  retained  in  command,  and  increased  confidence  was 
placed  in  him.  On  the  close  of  the  war  Mr.  Dana  was  appointed 
editor  of  a  new  Republican  paper,  started  in  Chicago.  It  was  not  suc- 
cessful, however,  and  he  returned  to  New  York  to  be  chosen  chief  editor 
of  the  Sun.  This  position  he  still  holds,  the  Su7i  having  become  a 
brilliant  and  highly  successful  journal,  possessing  great  influence  through- 
out the  country.  Mr.  Dana  assailed  General  Grant  very  bitterly  and 
persistently  during  his  eight  years'  administration,  though  no  one  paid 
him  a  more  generous  tribute  when  the  hero  was  laid  in  his  grave. 
Besides  his  work  as  a  journalist,  Mr.  Dana  has  edited  a  household  book 
of  poetry,  and  has  been  associated  with  George  Ripley  as  one  of  the 
editors  of  Appleton's  American  Cyclopcrdia.  Mr.  Dana  is  radical  in 
his  ideas,  with  a  disposition  to  assist  the  weaker  party  in  a  struggle. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  633 


XXI. 

Hon.  John  A.   Kasson, 

DIPLOMAT    AND    PUBLICIST. 

Mr.  Kasson  was  born  near  Burlington,  Vermont,  on  January  11, 
1822,  and  graduated  from  Vermont  University  in  1842.  He  studied 
law  in  Massachussetts,  was  called  to  the  bar  of  that  State,  but  soon 
after  went  to  practice  in  St.  Louis.  He  moved  still  farther  West  in 
1857,  and  settled  in  Iowa.  He  was  a  zealous  Republican,  and  took  an 
active  part  in  promoting  the  interests  of  that  party,  and  electing  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  the  Presidency  in  1861.  He  was  a  warm  personal  friend  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  who  appointed  him  First  Assistant  Postmaster-General. 
He  was  elected  to  Congress  in  1862,  and  remained  there,  by  re-election, 
until  his  appointment  as  American  Minister  to  Austria,  a  position 
from  which  he  was  recently  recalled  by  President  Cleveland.  Mr. 
Kasson  is  a  very  able  man.  His  speeches  in  Congress,  during  the  war, 
were  listened  to  with  great  interest,  and  read  with  attention  all  over 
the  country.  He  was  a  member  of  the  War  Committee,  and  belonged 
to  that  advance  of  the  Republican  Party  which  advocated  the  abolition 
of  slavery  from  the  beginning,  without  compromise.  He  has  been  and 
still  is  a  constant  contributor  to  the  North  American  Review,  and  is 
remarkable  for  his  industry  and  accuracy  of  statement. 


XXII. 

James  Barnet  Fry. 

James  Barnet  Fry  was  born  in  Carrollton,  Illinois,  February  22, 
1827  ;  entered  the  Militar>'  Academy  July  i.  1843  ;  was  graduated  and 
appointed  Brevet  Second  Lieutenant  Third  Artillery  July  i,  1847. 

He  joined  General  Scott's  army  in  the  City  of  Mexico  in  the  autumn 
of  1847.  and  returned  with  it  in  the  following  summer.  When  his  com- 
pany reached  New  York  he  was  sent  around  Cape  Horn  to  Oregon 
with  the  troops  dispatched  in  November,  1848,  to  take  military  posses- 
sion of  that  region.  Changes  of  station  to  Louisiana  and  thence  to 
Texas  occurred  in  1851-52;  in  1853  he  was  ordered  to  the  Military 
Academy  as   assistant  to  Major  (afterward   the  distinguished   Major- 


634  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

General)  George  H.  Thomas,  then  Instructor  of  Artillery  ;  and  in  1854 
was  appointed  Adjutant  of  the  Academy  by  the  Superintendent,  Colonel 
Robert  E.  Lee,  who  became  the  famous  leader  of  the  Confederate  forces. 

When  the  clouds  of  civil  war  were  gathering.  General  Fry,  then  First 
Lieutenant  First  Artillery,  was  commanding  Magruder's  battery,  which 
he  conducted  from  Fort  Leavenworth  to  Washington  in  January,  1861, 
and  commanded  in  the  streets  of  the  capital  during  the  anxious  day  of 
President  Lincoln's  first  inauguration.  After  the  army  began  to  crum- 
ble by  secession.  President  Lincoln  appointed  Lieutenant  Fry  a  captain 
in  the  Adjutant-General's  Department ;  and  on  the  28th  of  May,  1861, 
he  was  sent  across  the  Potomac  with  General  McDowell,  and  was  chief 
of  staff  to  McDowell's  army  during  the  Bull- Run  campaign.  In  No- 
vember, 1861,  he  was  sent  to  Kentucky  as  chief  of  staff  to  the  Army  of 
the  Ohio  under  General  Buell,  and  served  in  that  capacity  until  Novem- 
ber, 1862. 

On  the  17th  of  March,  1863,  he  was  selected  as  Provost  Marshal-Gen- 
eral of  the  United  States  under  the  act  o'f  March  3  of  that  year,  for  en- 
rolling and  drafting  the  National  forces,  and  held  that  office  until  it  was 
abolished  by  law  (August  30,  1866)  in  consequence  of  the  close  of  the 
war. 

After  the  war  General  Fry  resumed  duty  in  his  regular  department, 
and  served  as  adjutant-general  of  all  the  geographical  divisions — one 
after  another — into  which  the  country  is  divided  :  the  Division  of  the 
Pacific,  under  Major-General  Halleck ;  the  Division  of  the  South,  under 
the  same  officer ;  the  Division  of  the  Missouri,  under  Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral  Sheridan  ;  and  the  Division  of  the  Atlantic,  under  Major-General 
Hancock. 

He  was  breveted  colonel  for  gallant  and  meritorious  services  in  the 
battle  of  Bull  Run  ;  brigadier-general  for  gallant  and  meritorious 
services  in  the  battles  of  Shiloh  and  Perryville  ;  and  major-general  for 
faithful,  meritorious  and  distinguished  services  in  the  Provost  Marshal- 
General's  Department  during  the  war. 

On  the  ist  of  July,  1881,  General  Fry,  having  served  continuously  for 
thirty-four  years,  was,  at  his  own  request,  placed  upon  the  Retired  List, 
and  has  since  been  in  the  quiet  pursuit  of  military  studies.  He  is  the 
author  of  a  Sketch  of  the  Adjictmit-GeneraV s  Department  United 
States  Army  from  17 j^  to  1875  (1875)  ;  of  The  History  attd  Legal 
Effect  of  Brevets  in  the  Armies  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States  (1877)  ;  of  Army  Sacrifices,  illustrating  the  services  and  experi- 
ences of  the  United  States  army  on  the  Indian  frontier  (1879)  ;  of 
McDowell  and  Tyler  in  the  Campaign  of  Bull  Run  (1884);  of  The 
Army  under  Buell  and  the  Buell  Commission  (1884)  ;  and  of  New 
York  and  the  Conscription  of  1863  (1885). 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  635 

XXIII. 

Hugh  McCulloch. 

Mr.  McCulloch  was  born  in  Kennebunk,  Maine,  on  the  7th  of  De- 
cember, 1 80S.  His  father  was  one  of  the  large  ship-owners  of  New  Eng- 
land who  were  ruined,  or  nearly  ruined,  by  the  War  of  1 812,  and  one  of 
the  first  lessons  which  his  son  had  to  learn  was,  that  for  whatever  head- 
way he  made  in  the  world,  he  must  depend  upon  himself.  His  father  was, 
however,  able  to  pay  the  expenses  of  his  preparatory  education  and  of  a 
little  more  than  one  year's  study  at  Bowdoin  College.  Leaving  college 
in  his  Sophomore  year,  he  taught  school  for  a  couple  of  years,  and,  hav- 
ing earned  in  this  way  and  saved  a  few  hundred  dollars,  he  commenced 
the  study  of  law  in  his  native  town.  He  completed  his  course  of  legal 
study  in  Boston,  and  in  April,  1833,  anticipating  Mr.  Greeley's  advice, 
he  "  went  west."  In  June  following  he  reached  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana, 
which  was  described  by  him  as  then  being  a  mere  dot  of  civilization  in 
the  heart  of  a  magnificent  wilderness  ;  and  here  was  his  home  until 
1863.  In  the  autumn  of  1835,  he  organized  and  became  the  cashier  and 
manager  of  the  Fort  Wayne  branch  of  the  State  Bank  of  Indiana.  The 
next  year  he  was  elected  a  director  of  the  bank,  and  he  continued  to  be 
the  cashier  and  manager  of  the  branch  and  a  director  of  the  bank 
until  the  expiration  of  its  charter  in  1857.  In  1855  a  new  bank  was 
chartered,  and  of  this  bank  Mr.  McCulloch  was  elected  president. 
Both  banks  were  among  the  best  and  solidest  monetary  institutions  of 
this  or  any  other  country. 

In  April,  1863,  Mr.  McCulloch  was  appointed  Comptroller  of  the  Cur- 
rency, by  President  Lincoln,  at  the  request  of  Secretary  Chase.  It  was 
an  office  which  he  could  not  accept  without  considerable  pecuniary  sac- 
rifice, but  engaged  as  the  government  was  in  a  terrible  struggle  for  its 
existence,  he  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  withhold  from  it  such  services  as 
he  might  be  able  to  render  in  a  field  with  which  he  was  familiar. 

In  March,  1865,  he  was  appointed  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  While 
Comptroller,  his  relations  with  Secretary  Chase  and  his  successor,  Mr. 
Fessenden,  were  intimate.  He  understood  the  financial  condition  of  the 
countr}',  and  was  familiar  with  the  routine  of  the  department.  He  was 
therefore  fairly  equipped  for  the  place,  but  the  appointment  was  as  un- 
expected by  him  as  it  was  undesired.  He  held  the  office  until  March 
4,  1869.  From  1870  to  1880  he  was  engaged  in  banking  and  other 
business  transactions  either  in  London  or  New  York.  In  the  spring  of 
1880,  he  retired  to  a  farm  in  Maryland  to  find  employment  in  restoring 


636  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

to  fertility  land  which  had  been  greatly  impoverished  by  bad  hus- 
bandry. In  October,  1884,  he  again  entered  public  life  by  resuming  for 
a  brief  period,  at  the  request  of  President  Arthur,  the  offic-e  of  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury. 


XXIV. 

Chauncey  M.  Depew. 

Chauncey  M.  Depew  was  born  at  Peekskill,  New  York,  in  1834. 
He  comes  of  a  Huguenot  family,  and  on  the  maternal  side  is  descended 
from  a  brother  of  the  Roger  Sherman  of  Revolutionary  fame.  Graduated 
from  Yale  College  in  1856,  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1859.  Having 
been  returned  to  the  State  Legislature  from  the  Third  Westchester  Dis- 
trict in  1862,  he  was  Chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee  and 
acting  Speaker  during  part  of  that  year.  Mr.  Depew  displayed  such 
administrative  capacity,  and  spoke  with  such  eloquence  during  his  short 
term  as  Assemblyman,  that  in  1863  he  was  placed  in  nomination  for 
Secretary  of  State,  and  was  elected  by  the  large  majority  of  thirty  thou- 
sand. He  declined  re-election,  and  was  given  the  mission  to  Japan  by 
Secretary  Seward,  a  position,  however,  he  resigned  after  holding  it  four 
weeks,  in  order  to  resume  a  lucrative  business  at  the  bar.  It  was  soon 
after  this  he  fell  in  the  way  of  William  H.  Vanderbilt,  who,  always  on 
the  watch  for  great  business  ability,  gave  him  the  post  of  attorney  for 
the  New  York  &  Harlem  Railroad.  From  this  starting-point  on  the 
"  Vanderbilt  System "  his  promotion  was  rapid.  He  was  counsel- 
general  of  the  United  Central  and  Harlem  road  in  1875  ;  in  May,  1882, 
upon  the  reorganization  of  the  New  York  Central's  management,  second 
vice-president,  and  on  the  death  of  James  H.  Rutter  in  June,  1885,  was 
elected  president  of  one  of  the  greatest  corporations  in  the  world.  He 
has  not  been  so  uniformly  successful  in  the  political  arena.  In  1872  he 
rendered  material  aid  to  the  Liberal  Republican  ticket  at  the  head  of 
which  was  Horace  Greeley  for  President  of  the  United  States.  Mr. 
Depew  was  defeated  in  his  candidature  for  lieutenant-governor,  but  two 
years  later,  as  he  puts  it  himself,  the  legislature  "forgave"  him  by  elect- 
ing him  Regent  of  the  State  University.  In  the  unprecedented  contest 
for  senator  in  1881  Mr.  Depew  for  eighty-two  days  received  three-fourths 
of  the  Republican  vote,  but  retired  from  the  struggle  on  condition  that 
Warner  Miller  be  elected.  In  the  same  spirit  he  made  way  for  Senator 
Evarts  last  summer  when  morally  certain  of  election.     Mr.  Depew  is  a 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  637 

man  of  versatile  talents.  Had  he  devoted  himself  to  politics  exclusively 
there  is  no  office  in  the  United  States  he  might  not  legitimately  aspire 
to.  He  is  one  of  the  foremost  orators  in  the  country,  and  as  an  after- 
dinner  speaker  is  unrivaled.  He  charms  a  cultivated  audience  by  his 
subtle  humor,  and  a  general  audience  by  his  flowing  wit ;  is,  in  fact,  so 
flexible  that  he  can  readily  and  easily  adapt  himself  to  circumstances. 
And  that  he  can  give  quantity  as  well  as  quality  they  know  best  who 
took  part  in  the  campaign  of  1863,  when  he  spoke  twice  a  day  for  six 
weeks  in  various  parts  of  the  State.  He  has  in  him  the  esprit  of  his 
French  ancestr>'  and  the  force  of  the  Revolutionary  Shermans.  ^ 


XXV. 

David  Ross  Locke, 

HUMORIST    AND    JOURNALIST. 

The  subject  of  this  sketch — "  Petroleum  V.  Nasby  '' — is  a  satirist  and 
humorist,  known  to  fame  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken  and 
in  many  places  where  it  is  not  ;  for  who  has  not  heard  of  "  Nasby," 
and  who  has  not  come  in  contact  with  that  creation  of  his  genius,  the 
Cross-road  Democrat,  looking  to  Washington  and  political  victory 
for  a  country  post-office  ?  Mr.  Locke  was  born  in  Broome  County, 
N.  Y.,  in  December,  1823.  He  received  a  common-school  education, 
like  most  of  his  contemporary  humorists;  for  it  seems  that  an  early 
classical  drill  is  not  favorable  to  rich  development  in  that  depart- 
ment of  literature  of  which  Mr.  Locke  is  so  renowned  a  master. 
It  appears,  also,  that  the  type-case  is  a  more  potent  factor  in  the 
training  of  talent  in  our  day  than  the  best  university.  Mr.  Locke 
learned  the  printing  business  in  the  office  of  the  Cortlandt  Democrat, 
but  while  still  a  young  man  obtained  employment  as  local  reporter 
in  various  Western  cities.  He  was  successively  editor  and  publisher 
of  the  Plymouth  Advertiser,  Mansfield  Herald,  Bucyrus  Jourjial, 
and  Findlay  Jefferso7iian,  all  of  the  State  of  Ohio.  It  w^as  in  the 
Jeffersoniajt  that  he  began  the  "Nasby  Letters"  in  i860.  They 
at  once  engaged  public  attention,  and  soon  brought  the  writer  a  na- 
tional reputation.  President  Lincoln  is  reported  to  have  said  that,  next 
to  a  dispatch  announcing  a  Union  victory,  he  read  a  Nasby  letter  with 
most  pleasure.     After  many  adventures  in  the  journalistic    field,  Mr. 


638  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

Locke  obtained  the  ownership  of  the  Toledo  Blade,  which  he  still  re- 
tains. He  is  a  striking  exception  among  literary  men  in  that  he  com- 
bines great  business  capacity  with  literary  talent  and  vivid  imagination. 
While  on  a  European  tour,  in  1881,  he  met  his  old  friend,  James  Red- 
path,  who  interested  him  in  Irish  politics,  a  subject  on  which  Mr.  Locke 
delivered  several  lectures.  He  opened  the  columns  of  the  Blade,  also, 
to  the  advocacy  of  the  Irish  cause.  Mr.  Locke  has  been  thoroughly 
successful  as  an  editor,  author,  lecturer,  and  man  of  business.  He  pub- 
lished Nasby  in  1865,  Swingiti'  Round  the  Cirkle  in  1866,  and 
Ekkoes  from  Ke^itucky  and  others  of  his  letters  have  since  appeared. 
Although  he  discovered  a  gold  mine  in  his  head  at  a  comparatively 
early  age,  he  still  works  on,  but  chiefly  at  his  paper,  the  Toledo  Blade. 


XXVI. 

Leonard  Swett. 

Leonard  Swett  was  born  near  the  village  of  Turner,  Oxford 
County,  in  the  State  of  Maine,  on  the  eleventh  day  of  August,  a.d. 
1825,  on  what  was  known  as  Swett's  Hill.  This  hill  has  since  been 
owned  by  the  family;  it  slopes  in  all  directions,  and  constitutes  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  spots  in  New  England.  'Here  his  father  and  mother 
lived  during  their  lives,  and  here  they  died.  His  father  was  seventy 
years  old  and  his  mother  was  in  her  eighty-ninth  year,  at  the  date  of 
their  respective  deaths. 

Mr.  Swett,  the  subject  of  this  sketch,  was  the  second  son  and  fourth 
child  of  his  parents,  and  they  conceived  the  idea,  at  an  early  date,  of 
giving  him  a  better  education  than  the  town  afforded.  Consequently, 
he  was  sent  to  select  schools  in  the  vicinity  and  completed  his  educa- 
tion at  North  Yarmouth  Academy  and  Waterville  College,  now  Colby 
University.  He  read  law  for  two  years  with  Messrs.  Howard  &  Shep- 
ley.  at  Portland,  Maine,  and  then  started  in  the  world  to  seek  his 
fortune.  At  tirst,  for  nearly  a  year,  he  traveled  in  the  South,  when, 
with  the  spirit  of  adventure,  he  volunteered  as  a  soldier  in  the  Mexican 
War,  and  was  under  General  Scott  on  the  line  of  Vera  Cruz  and  the 
City  of  Mexico.  The  war  closed  in  May,  1848  ;  then  Mr.  Swett  re- 
turned and  settled  at  Bloomington,  in  the  State  of  Illinois.  He  com- 
menced the  practice  of  his  profession  in  the  fall  of  1849,  ^'^^  ^^^  given 
to  that  profession  the  labor  of  a  life,  being  now  in  his  sixty-first  year. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  639 

At  first,  he  was  in  indifferent  health,  on  account  of  a  disease,  con- 
tracted in  Mexico,  which  rendered  it  impracticable  for  him  to  sit  in  an 
office  and  do  office  work,  and,  therefore,  he  commenced  to  travel  the 
circuit.  The  bar  of  that  circuit — the  eighth — at  that  time,  embraced 
many  men  of  marked  ability,  some  of  whom  afterwards  acquired  a 
national  reputation.  David  Davis,  since  distinguished  as  a  Judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  and  a  Senator  of  the  United  States,  was  the  judge 
from  1849  until  1862.  Abraham  Lincoln,  for  two  years  a  Member  of 
Congress,  and  afterward  known  to  the  world  as  the  martyred  President 
and  the  emancipator  of  a  race,  was  one  of  its  lawyers.  Edward  D. 
Baker,  a  Member  of  Congress  from  the  Sangamon  district,  also,  after- 
ward from  the  Galena  district,  in  the  State  of  Illinois — also  a  distin- 
guished citizen  of  California,  and  a  Senator  of  the  United  States  from 
Oregon  and  who  died  leading  his  men  at  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff- 
was  another  of  its  lawyers.  There  were  also  Edward  Hannagan  and 
Daniel  W.  Voorhees,  since  Senators  from  Indiana,  who  attended  the 
eastern  part  of  the  circuit,  and  Stephen  T.  Logan,  John  T.  Stuart,  U.  F. 
Linder,  Ward  H.  Lamon  and  Oliver  L.  Davis.  The  circuit  commenced 
the  first  of  September  and  ended  about  the  first  of  January.  The  Spring 
circuit  commenced  about  February  and  ended  in  June.  In  a  life  with 
these  men  and  upon  this  circuit,  Mr.  Swett  spent  from  1849  *^o  1862. 

The  lawyers  would  arrive  at  a  county  seat  of  from  five  hundred  to  two 
thousand  inhabitants,  and  the  clients  and  public  would  arrive  from  the 
country  adjoining  at  about  the  same  time.  The  lawyers  would  then  be 
employed  in  such  suits  as  would  be  pending  in  court,  and  the  trials 
would  immediately  begin.  After  from  three  days  to  a  week,  spent  in 
this  manner,  the  court  would  adjourn  and  the  cavalcade  start  for  the 
adjoining  county  seat,  where  the  same  processes  would  be  repeated. 
Twice  a  year  fourteen  counties  were  traversed  in  this  way.  In  this 
manner,  and  under  the  hammering  of  these  men,  Mr.  Swett  received 
his  earlier  legal  education. 

David  Davis,  in  a  speech  at  Springfield,  recently  made,  said,  in  sub- 
stance, that  this  time  constituted  the  bright  spot  of  his  life.  In  this  ex- 
pression he  would  be  joined  by  every  man  named,  most  of  whom  now 
live  "  beyond  the  river." 

In  1865,  Mr.  Swett  moved  to  Chicago,  where  he  has  since  acquired 
a  prominent  and  leading  position  as  a  lawyer  in  Chicago  and  the  North- 
west. During  his  life  in  the  country,  in  Illinois,  pending  the  agitation 
of  the  slavery  question,  and  before  the  war,  he  took  an  active  part  in 
politics,  having  canvassed  nearly  the  whole  State  in  the  years  1852, 
1854,  1856,  1858  and  i860.  He,  however,  never  held  but  one  office, 
which  was  that  of  Member  of  the  Legislature  in  1858-9,  and  this  was 
at  the  special  request  of  Lincoln  himself,  and  to  save  him  the  vote   of 


640  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

McLean  County,  in  his  contest  with  Mr.  Douglas  lor  the  Senatorship. 
That  county,  at  the  previous  election,  had  been  carried  by  four  votes. 
Lincoln  thought  Swett  could  carry  it  again,  and  asked  him  to  run.  He 
did  so,  and  was  elected  by  nearly  five  hundred  majority.  Since  his 
removal  to  Chicago,  he  has  devoted  himself  exclusively  to  his  profession 
and  has  absolutely  ignored  politics. 

Mr.  Swett  has  been  distinguished  as  a  successful  trier  of  causes.  In 
fact  he  has  done  little  else  during  his  professional  life.  In  Chicago,  the 
most  important  cases  have  been  intrusted  to  him,  and  it  is  a  rare  thing 
that  he  loses  one  of  them.  The  reason  of  this  is  that  he  attends  to 
the  details  of  the  preparation  personally,  himself  seeing  and  talking  with 
his  witnesses,  so  that  when  the  cause  is  heard  in  court,  the  various  ele- 
ments fit  together  "without  noise  of  axe  or  hammer." 


XXVII. 

Walt   Whitman, 

Walt  Whitman  was  bom  at  West  Hills,  Huntington,  Suffolk 
County,  State  of  New  York,  May  31,  1819  ;  father,  a  farmer  and  carpen- 
ter; mother's  maiden  name.  Van  Velsor,  of  Dutch  stock.  Was  brought 
up  iff  Brooklyn  and  New,  York  cities,  and  went  to  the  public  schools  ; 
as  a  young  man  worked  at  type-setting  and  writing  in  printing-offices. 
Has  traveled  and  lived  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States,  from  Canada  to 
Texas  inclusive.  Began  his  book  of  poems.  Leaves  of  Grass,  in  1855 
and  completed  it  in  1881,  when,  after  six  or  seven  stages,  the  final  edi- 
tion was  issued.  Walt  Whitman  is  also  author  of  a  prose  book, 
Specimen  Days  and  Collect,  published  in  1883.  During  1863,  '64, 
and  '65,  he  was  actively  occupied  in  the  army  hospitals  and  on  the 
battle-fields  of  the  Secession  war,  as  care-taker  for  the  worst  cases  of 
wounded  and  sick  of  both  armies.  After  the  close  of  the  war,  had  a 
severe  paralytic  stroke,  from  which  he  has  never  since  entirely  recov- 
ered. Lives  (1886)  in  partial  seclusion  at  Camden,  New  Jersey.  Calls 
himself  "  a  half-paralytic."     Still  writes  and  lectures  occasionally. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  64 1 

XXVIII. 

DoNN    PlATT. 

DONN  Piatt,  journalist,  is  of  French  extraction,  as  his  cognomen 
indicates,  and  Huguenot  blood.  The  name  has  been  somewhat  noted 
wherever  known.  The  grandfather  served  with  distinction  in  the  Revo- 
lution, coming  out  decorated  with  a  wound,  and  honored  by  a  service, 
at  one  time,  on  the  staff  of  General  Washington.  The  son,  John  H. 
Piatt,  put  a  large  fortune,  made  through  enterprise  at  Cincinnati,  to  the 
service  of  the  governnient,  in  its  distress  during  the  war  of  '12,  and 
died  bankrupt  and  broken-hearted  in  consequence.  Sixty  years  after, 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  recognized  his  devotion  by 
adjudicating  the  claim  in  favor  of  the  heirs.  Donn  Piatt  at  the  age  of 
twenty-five  was  commissioned  a  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  at 
Cincinnati.  Shortly  after  he  was  appointed  Secretary  of  Legation  at 
Paris,  and  served  as  Charge  d' Affairs  for  nearly  a  year,  during  the  sad 
incapacity  of  the  minister  from  a  sickness  that  ended  in  death.  Enter- 
ing the  service  of  the  government  during  the  late  civil  war,  he  took  part 
in  the  batdes  of  the  first  and  second  Bull  Run,  that  of  Cross  Keys,  and 
Bull  Pasture  Mountain.  After,  assigned  to  duty  on  courts  martial,  he 
wrote  the  noted  finding  of  the  military  tribunal  that  censured  McClellan 
for  not  retaining  Harper's  Ferry,  and  then  served  as  judge-advocate 
of  the  court  convened  to  investigate  General  Buell's  operations  in  Ten- 
nessee. At  the  end  of  the  war  he  became  journalist,  and  made  the 
IVashingion  Capital  a  success.  The  deaths  of  his  father  and  father- 
in-law  putting  him  in  possession  of  a  fortune,  he  retired  to  a  farm  in  the 
Mac-o-Chuk  Valley,  where  he  lives,  he  says,  "  a  practical  farmer," 
which  means,  he  assures  us,  "  to  lose  more  to  the  acre  than  any  man, 
of  like  pursuit,  in  Ohio." 


XXIX, 

E.   W.   Andrews.  A.M. 

E.  W.  Andrews,  A.M.,  is  the  son  of  Rev.  William  Andrews,  and 
was  born  in  Windham,  Connecticut,  in  181 2.     He  spent  three  of  the 
earlier  years  of  his  life  in  learning  car.iage-painting  in  the  celebrated 
41 


642  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

carriage  manufactory  of  James  Brewster,  in  New  Haven,  and,  while 
there,  he,  with  six  other  apprentices,  formed  "  The  Mechanics'  Associa- 
tion," which  has  since  grown  into  one  of  the  most  valuable  institutions 
of  that  beautiful  and  prosperous  city.  While  yet  an  apprentice,  Mr. 
Andrews  nearly  fitted  himself  for  college,  and  subsequently  pursued  his 
studies  at  Schenectady,  New  Haven  and  at  the  law  school  of  Judge 
Gould  at  Litchfield  ;  and,  in  1834,  was  admitted  to  the  bar  of  Connecti- 
cut, and  practised  law  for  some  years  in  that  State  in  partnership  with 
the  late  Hon.  Truman  Smith.  In  1837,  he  entered  the  ministry  of  the 
Congregational  Church,  and  was,  soon  after,  settled  as  pastor  of  the 
Congregational  Church  in  West  Hartford,  Connecticut.  In  1840,  he  was 
offered  the  pastorate  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  Congregational  Church 
in  the  city  of  New  York.  This  church  had  just  been  organized  and  was 
the  first  of  this  order  established  in  that  city  ;  but,  although  small  in  its 
beginning  and  weak  in  its  resources — and,  at  first,  without  the  sympathy 
and  support  of  those  churches  of  the  city  which,  it  was  supposed,  would 
naturally  affiliate  with  it — yet  during  the  four  or  five  years  of  Mr.  An- 
drews' pastorate  it  grew  rapidly,  the  congregation  became  the  largest 
in  the  city,  and  foundations  were  laid  on  which  has  arisen  one  of  the 
most  substantial,  influential  and  useful  churches  of  New  York.  In 
1845,  Mr.  Andrews  was  settled  as  pastor  of  the  Second  Street  Presby- 
terian Church  at  Troy,  where  he  remained  several  years.  In  1853,  he 
was  appointed,  by  President  Fillmore,  on  the  Board  of  Visitors  at  West 
Point,  and,  by  appointment  of  the  Board,  prepared  its  report  to  Con- 
gress. In  the  fall  of  that  year,  on  motion  of  Henry  E.  Davies,  seconded 
by  Daniel  Lord,  Mr.  Andrews  was  admitted  as  a  member  of  the  bar 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  practised  law  in  the  State  until  the 
spring  of  1862.  At  this  time,  a  commission  was  offered  him,  by  Gov- 
ernor Morgan,  to  aid  in  raising  a  regiment  of  infantry,  for  the  war,  in 
the  Congressional  district  embracing  the  counties  of  Westchester,  Rock- 
land, and  Putnam.  Under  this  commission,  Mr.  Andrews  addressed 
numerous  mass-meetings  held  in  these  counties  to  secure  enlistments, 
and  when  the  regiment  was  raised  went  with  it  to  the  seat  of  war  as 
captain  of  one  of  its  companies,  and  continued  with  it  until  January, 
1863,  when  he  accepted  an  invitation  from  General  W.  W.  Morris, 
U.  S.  A.,  then  commanding  the  defenses  of  Baltimore,  to  become  his  chief 
of  staff  and  assistant  adjutant-general.  Shortly  after,  Mr.  Andrews 
was  transferred  to  the  Adjutant-General's  Department  of  the  Army, 
and  mustered  out  of  the  volunteer  service.  In  this  position  he  remained 
for  two  years,  and  until  he  left  the  service  near  the  close  of  the  war. 
Mr.  Andrews  had  three  sons,  a  son-in-law,  and  a  brother  in  the  army — 
his  brother  commanding  for  a  time  the  Thirty-sixth  Ohio  Volunteers. 
Shortly  after  the  close  of  the  war,  he  accepted  the  position  of  counsel 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  643 

for  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad,  in  the  State  of  West  Virginia,  and 
has  since  devoted  himself  chiefly  to  the  practice  of  the  law.  He  is  now 
a  resident  of  New  York. 


XXX. 

James  C.  Welling. 

James  C.  Welling  was  born  in  Trenton,  N.  J.,  on  the  14th  of  July, 
1825.  After  graduation  at  Princeton  College,  in  1844,  lie  studied  law, 
but  renounced  its  practice  to  become  Associate  Principal  of  the  New 
York  Collegiate  School  in  1 848.  In  1 85 1 ,  he  became  literary  editor  of  the 
National  Intelligencer  ?^\.  Washington,  D.  C,  and,  a  few  years  later,  suc- 
ceeded to  Joseph  Gales  in  the  political  conduct  of  that  old  and  influential 
journal.  During  the  Civil  War  his  relations  with  the  members  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln's  Cabinet  were  intimate  and  often  confidential.  Before, 
during,  and  after  the  war,  Mr.  Welling  stood  steadfastly  by  the  Consti- 
tution and  the  Union*  without,  however,  always  approving  the  civil  poli- 
cies of  the  Administration.  He  resigned  his  editorial  position  in  1865,  be- 
cause of  broken  health.  For  several  years  he  was  one  of  the  clerks  of  the 
United  States  Court  of  Claims.  In  1870  he  was  appointed  Professor  of 
Fielles  Lettres  in  Princeton  College,  and,  a  year  afterward,  was  called  to 
the  presidency  of  the  Columbian  University— an  office  which  he  still 
holds.  During  his  administration  of  that  institution  it  has  received  a 
new  charter  from  Congress,  has  erected  a  new  University  building  in  the 
heart  of  Washington,  and  has  enlarged  the  scope  of  its  operations  by 
adding  a  scientific  school  to  the  other  schools  already  comprised  in  its 
system.  By  joint  resolution  of  Congress  in  1884,  he  was  appointed  a 
Regent  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  and  is  Chairman  of  its  Executive 
Comniittee.  He  is  also  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the 
Corcoran  Gallery  of  Art  in  Washington,  and  takes  a  deep  interest  in  the 
prosperity  of  that  institution— the  most  richly  endowed  institution  of  its 
kind  in  the  country. 


644  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES. 

XXXI. 

John  Conness. 

John  Conness  was  born  in  Ireland  in  1821.  He  was  the  youngest 
son  of  Walter  Conness,  a  man  distinguished  among  his  neighbors  for 
high  character,  great  wisdom  and  intellectual  accomplishments.  Com- 
ing to  New  York  City,  he  was  fortunate  enough  to  have  as  a  teacher 
Hon.  William  A.  Walker,  subsequently  a  member  of  Congress,  and 
connected  later  with  the  Board  of  Education  of  that  city. 

In  the  high  example  set  to  his  pupils,  his  power  to  impress,  and  the 
never-ceasing  force  applied  in  his  profession,  Mr.  Walker  might  be  said 
to  have  been  peerless ;  and  his  pupils,  among  whom  were  John  A.  Stew- 
art, Abrani  Hewitt  and  Edward  Cooper,  are  examples  of  his  conscien- 
tious faithfulness. 

In  1849,  Mr.  Conness  went  with  the  first  American  emigrants,  after 
the  discovery  of  gold,  to  California.  There,  he  engaged  in  mining  and 
other  pursuits,  but  when  the  attempt  was  made  by  Southern  men  to 
change  the  free  institutions  of  the  young  State,  and  to  dominate  opinion 
by  strategy  and  force,  Conness  joined  his  efforts  to  those  of  Broderick 
in  favor  of  freedom  on  the  Pacific  coast. 

This,  and  not  personal  ambition,  brought  him  to  the  center  of  political 
action,  where  he  was  an  important  factor  up  to  the  period  of  the  Civil 
War. 

In  1856,  Broderick  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate,  but,  in 
1859,  f^''  ''^  ^  duel,  having  served  tvyo  years  of  his  term.  Milton  S. 
Latham  succeeded  Broderick,  or  served  out  the  four  years  remaining  of 
his  term. 

Latham's  course  in  the  Senate,  and  his  support  of  Breckinridge  and 
opposition  to  Douglas  offended  the  loyal  sentiment  of  California. 

The  supporters  of  Douglas  and  Broderick,  there,  united  with  the  Re- 
publicans, and,  meeting  in  convention  together,  they  resolved  to  act, 
during  the  war,  as  supporters  of  the  administration  of  Lincoln  and  of  the 
Union.  The  result  of  this  union  of  parties  was  the  election  of  John 
Conness  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  in  1863,  thus  succeeding  to 
Broderick's  term  and  serving  until  1869. 

In  the  Senate  Mr.  Conness  charged  himself,  first,  with  a  support  of  all 
measures  necessary  to  maintain  the  national  power;  and,  thereafter,  with 
the  changes  needed  in  the  fundamental  and  statute  law  to  maintain  the 
new  order  of  things  resulting,;  from  the  triumph  of  the  national  cause. 

Next,  he  gave  persistent  attention  to  legislation  for  the  benefit  of  his 


BIOGRA  PHICA  L    SR'E  TCHt  S. 


645 


State,  which  had  been  neglected  through  the  period  of  bitter  controversy 
since  the  admission  of  California  into  the  Union. 

Immediately  after  leaving  the  Senate,  in  1869,  he  married  a  lady  of 
Massachusetts.  It  was  their  firm  intention  to  have  lived  in  California, 
but,  through  a  series  of  events  which  occurred,  it  seemed  to  be  impossi- 
ble, and  their  home  is  made  in  the  suburbs  of  Boston. 


XXXII. 

John  B.   Alley. 

John  B.  Alley  was  born  in  Lynn,  Mass.,  January  7,  1817,  of 
Quaker  parents.  He  went  to  school  until  twelve  years  of  age,  when  he 
left. 

When  fourteen,  he  learned  the  trade  of  a  shoemaker;  at  sixteen,  he  was 
a  newspaper  correspondent.  He  was  a  great  student  and  lover  ot 
history.  At  eighteen,  he  delivered  an  historical  lecture  which  was  much 
praised. 

When  nineteen,  he  went  to  Cincinnati,  purchased  a  boat,  stocked  it 
with  goods,  hired  a  crew  and  floated  down  to  New  Orleans,  upon  a 
trading  expedition.  His  adventure  was  pecuniarily  very  successful. 
When  twenty-one,  he  establislied  a  large  manufacturing  business,  and,  a 
little  later,  he  added  an  importing  branch  ;  and  became,  in  a  few  years, 
the  most  successful  manufacturer  and  merchant  that  his  native  town  has 
ever  produced.  Very  early  in  life  he  took  a  very  active  interest  in  the 
anti-slavery  cause,  and  was  published  in  several  cities  of  the  South  as 
an  obnoxious  abolitionist  that  Southern  merchants  ought  to  shun. 

When  a  very  young  man,  he  was  elected,  by  the  Legislature  of  Massa- 
chusetts, a  member  of  the  Governor's  Council — the  youngest  member  in 
it.  The  following  year  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  was  appointed  chairman  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Rail- 
roads, at  that  time  the  most  important  committee  of  the  Legislature. 

When  he  retired  from  the  Senate,  he  was  nominated,  then  a  very 
young  man,  for  a  seat  in  Congress,  and  received  a  large  vote,  but  was 
not  elected  until  several  years  after. 

In  1858,  he  was  elected  to  Congress,  and  continued  to  be  nominated 
unanimously  in  '60,  '62  and  '64,  thus  serving  as  a  member  of  Congress 
for  eight  years.  In  that  body  he  served  on  several  important  com- 
mittees, and  was  chairman  for  four  years  of  the  Committee  on  Post  Offices 


646  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCHES. 

and  Post  Roads,  from  which  committee  he  reported  several  very  important 
bills  in  the  interest  of  the  country.  We  believe  that  no  bill  he  ever  reported 
and  no  measure  he  ever  advocated,  during  his  long  term  of  service,  failed 
to  receive  the  approbation  of  the  House. 

He  was  a  persuasive  and  effective  speaker.  At  the  expiration  of  his 
fourth  term  he  voluntarily  retired  to  private  life,  and  has  not  since  been 
a  candidate  for  public  office  or  been  in  public  life,  although  offered  some 
important  positions,  which  he  declined. 

He  was  a  member  and  chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Committee 
for  several  years.  For  the  last  forty  years  he  has  been  actively  and  suc- 
cessfully engaged,  as  he  is  now,  in  the  hide  and  leather  business  in 
Boston,  as  the  head  of  the  house  of  John  B.  Alley  &  Co.  He  has  been 
for  many  years  engaged  in  large  railroad  operations  in  the  West,  and,  it 
is  said,  has  been  remarkably  successful.  Mr.  Alley  was  very  intimate 
with  Mr.  Lincoln  during  the  whole  of  his  Presidency,  and  also  num- 
bered among  his  cherished  and  close  friends,  Charles  Sumner  and  Chief 
Justice  Chase  ;  and  the  ties  of  personal  friendship,  notwithstanding  politi- 
cal differences,  continued  until  severed  by  death. 


XXXIII. 

Thomas  Hicks 

Mr  Hicks  is  a  native  of  Newtown,  Bucks  County,  Penn.,  and  com- 
menced his  studies  in  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts,  in 
Philadelphia.  Afterward  he  was  a  pupil  of  the  National  Academy  of  De- 
sign of  New  York  and  was  elected  Academician  in  1851.  He  went  to 
Europe  in  1845.  After  making  some  studies  in  the  National  Gallery  in 
London,  he  went  to  Paris,  where  he  visited  all  the  great  galleries  for 
which  it  is  so  renowned.  After  remaining  in  Paris  for  about  a  month, 
he  started,  with  a  companion,  on  a  tour  a  pied  through  Switzerland. 
Reaching  Basle  by  diligence,  the  walk  commenced,  and  the  first  day 
brought  him  to  Zurich  ;  thence  he  went  to  the  Rigi  and  Luzern,  over 
the  St.  Gothard,  through  the  valley  of  Tessin  to  Bellinzona,  thence 
to  Lake  Como  and  to  Milan.  From  Milan  lie  proceeded  to  Flor- 
ence by  diligence,  where  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Hiram  Powers 
and  Horatio  Greenough.  After  visiting  the  galleries  and  the  great 
sculptures  by  Michael  Angelo,  Ghiberti,  Benvenuto  Cellini,  and  others, 
for  which  that  city  is  famous,  he  proceeded  to  Rome,  where  there  was 
already  a  colony  of  American  artists  which  included  J.  E.  Freeman, 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCHES.  647 

Lulher  Terry,  George  A.  Baker,  Thomas  Crawford  and  H.  K.  Brown, 
Among  the  distinguished  Americans  settled  there  for  ihe  winter  were 
Margaret  Fuller,  Marcus  Spring,  W.  W.  Story,  George  W.  Curtis  and 
others.  In  Rome,  Mr.  Hicks  became  a  pupil  of  Ferero,  the  distin- 
guished teacher  and  draughtsman. 

In  the  summer  of  1847,  Mr.  Hicks  passed  a  month  at  Venice  with 
Mr.  G.  W.  Curtis,  his  brother,  Burrill,  and  John  F.  Kensett.  On  leaving 
Venice,  he  parted  with  his  companions  at  Ferrara,  they  going  north, 
and  he  returned  to  Rome,  w  here  he  remained  until  the  following  spring, 
when  he  went  to  Paris,  and  entered  the  studio  of  Thomas  Couture. 
After  the  insurrection,  which  ended  in  June,  he  went  to  Barbizon  for  a 
month,  and  saw  there  the  French  artists  Rousseau,  Diaz,  Corot,  Millet, 
who  were  all  living  there  at  that  time,  and  many  others,  none  of  whom 
were  famous  then,  but  who  in  recent  times  have  become  so.  In  the 
fall  of  1849,  M""-  Hicks  returned  to  New  York  and  began  his  successful 
career  as  a  portrait  painter.  Mr.  Hicks  went  to  Europe  in  1875  and 
visited  England,  France,  Italy,  and  Switzerland.  In  the  winter  of  1876 
he  painted  a  portrait  of  General  Meade  in  the  accoutrements  worn  at 
the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  now  owned  by  General  Meade's  family.  This 
portrait,  that  of  Dr.  Delafield,  owned  by  the  New  York  Academy  of 
Medicine,  and  one  of  Dr.  John  F.  Gray,  were  exhibited  in  the  Centennial 
Exhibition  of  1876,  for  which  the  medal  and  diploma  were  awarded. 
Mr.  Hicks  was  president  of  the  Artists'  Fund  Society  of  New  York  for 
many  years,  from  which  office  he  retired  in  1885. 

Mr.  Hicks  has  had  two  narrow  escapes  from  death  ;  at  a  Roman 
Carnival  by  a  stiletto  wound  from  the  hand  of  an  unknown  assassin,  and, 
later,  in  the  railroad  disaster  at  Norwalk,  Conn. 

In  April,  i860,  Mr.  Hicks,  having  some  business  in  Washington,  the 
Republican  Committee  of  this  city  gave  him  a  letter  to  Mr.  Seward,  who 
was  a  Senator  then,  requesting  him  to  sit  to  Mr.  Hicks  for  a  portrait. 
The  sittings  were  very  pleasant.  It  was  the  first  profile  portrait  painted 
of  him,  and  is  now  owned  by  the  Union  League  Club.  This  portrait 
was  copied  on  a  silk  banner,  and  was  taken  to  Chicago  to  be  unfurled 
when  Mr.  Seward  should  have  been  nominated  by  acclamation.  But 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  nominated,  and  Mr.  Hicks  has  told  us  about  the  por- 
trait he  painted  of  him,  and  of  the  occurrences  of  the  time. 


INDEX. 


Abuse  by  newspapers,  58,  478,  589. 
Ability.     {Ste  Characteristics.) 
Abolitionist.    (5tv  Negro  </«</  Slavery.) 
Adams,  Dispatch  to,  liv.,  Ix.,  Ixx.,  127, 

579- 
"      Fac-simile,  Ixx. 
Alley,  J.  B..  Biography,  645. 

"        "    "     Reminiscences,  573. 
Andrews,  E.  W.,  Biography.  641. 

"         "     "     Reminiscences,  501. 
Andrews,  J.  A.,  167,  257. 

R.  F.,  69. 
Anecdotes  and  Apposite  Sayings. 
Big  Crop  of  Fight,  432. 
Blacksmith  and  Iron,  3. 
Cure  for  Boils,  509. 
Darkey  Arithmetic,  288. 
Farmer  and  Skunks,  236. 
Going  to  a  Hanging,  403. 
Make  a  Fizzle  Anyhow,  3. 
Monkey  and  His  Tail,  2,  194. 
Mormon  Title,  211. 
Nothing  but  Money,  239. 
Sicker  Man,  A,  240. 
Plowed  Round  Him,  400. 
Pretentious  Shirt,  294. 
Prize  Hog,  xxvi. 
Pyramid,  443. 

Jievcnoiis  a  N'os  Moutons,  227. 
Shadrach,   Meshach  and  Abed- 

nego,  237. 
Something  to  give  Office  Seek- 
ers, 337. 
Squealing  Boy,  401. 
Temperance  Irishman,  97. 
On  Vanity,  442. 
Anecdotes,  Whence  Derived,  54. 
"  Solace  to  Care,  54. 

"  of  Robert  Lewis,  211. 

Anger.  {See  Characteristics.) 
Antietam,  Battle  of,  99,  273. 
Antislavery  Ideas  in  Illinois,  409. 


Applications  for  Army  Offices,  390. 

for     Office.      (5^^0ffice- 
Seekers.) 
"  for  Autographs,  229. 

Appointments  to  Office,  363,  578. 
Arming  the  Negroes,  332. 
\See  also  Negroes.) 
Army  Losses,  287. 
Army  Mails,  328. 
Arnold,  J.  N.,  15. 
Ashman,  George,  167,  257. 
Aspect  of  Lincoln. 

When  Story  Telling,  54. 
In  Court  Room,  48. 
In  Early  Life,  16. 
Change  of,  99. 

In  general,    16,  48,  54,  96,  99, 
123,    172,    186,  213.  230,  24g, 
258,  285,  294,   337,   341.  388. 
412,  414,  441,   469,   479.  4S7, 
491.  499,  515- 
After  death,  452. 
Asperity  of  Manner,  282. 
Assassination,  The,  44,  384,  404. 
Athlete,  463. 
Attorney.     {See  Lawyer.) 
Authorship,  Skill  at,  414. 


B 


Baker,  E.  D.,  8,  9.  15,  51.  299. 
"     "     Death  of,  173. 
"        Senator,  Charges  Against.  5T. 
Barlow,  S.  L.  M.,  xxxiii. 
Bates,  Atty.-General,  240,  244. 
Battle  of  Ball's  Bluff,  i73- 
Beecher,  H.  W.,  Biography,  625. 
"  "       "     Portrait,  247. 

"  "       "     Reminiscences,  247 

"  "       "     Visit   to  Washing- 

ton, 248. 
"  "       "     Visit    to    England, 

249. 


650 


INDEX. 


Birney,  W.,  495. 
Birthplace  of  Lincoln,  606, 
Bissell,  W.  H.,  8. 
Bixby,  Mrs.,  Letter  to,  iii. 
Black  Hawk  War,  6,  220,  463. 
Blaine,  J.  G.,  Corrected,  39. 
Blair,  F.  P.,  257. 
"      F.  P.,  jr.,  260. 
"      M.,  328. 
Blanchard,  J.,  17,  222. 
Boarders  at  Mrs.  Sprigg's,  17. 
BoUTWELL,  G.  S.,  Biography,  616. 
"  "    "    Portrait,  loi. 

"  "    "    Reminiscences, loi. 

Breckenridge,  R.  G.,  297. 
Brownlow,  Parson,  597. 
Browning,  O.  H.,  15,  605. 

O.  S.,  293. 
Buckingham,  Gov.,  Visit  of,  190. 
Bullitt,  351. 

Burlingame,  Anson,  loi. 
Burnside  as  Housekeeper,  278. 
Butler,  B.  F,,  Biography,  618. 
"  "     "   Portrait,  139. 

"  "    "  Reminiscences,  139. 

"  "    "  First      Meeting     with 

Lincoln,  139. 
"  "     "  Lincoln's  Visit  to,  146. 

"  "    "  Commissioned  as  Ma- 

jor-General,  139. 
"  "     "  Examined  inEngineer- 

ing,  147- 

"  "     "  Ship    Island    Expedi- 

tion, 142. 

"  "     "  Offered  the  Vice-Presi- 

dency, 587. 
Buttcrficld,  431. 


Cabinet,  liii.,  345,  369. 

California,  Delegation  from,  50. 

Cameron,  S.,  Appointment  of,  48. 

Campbell,  T. ,  14,  15. 

Candidate  for  Renomination,  560. 

Capital.     {See  Labor.) 

Capitol  Prison,  Inmates  of,  389. 

Captain  of  Volunteers,  6,  463. 

Cartter,  D.  K. ,  167,  257. 

Carroll,  T.  B.,  363. 

Cass,  Gen.,  220. 

Censorship  of  the  Press,  298. 

Character,  xxiv.,  493. 

Characteristics. 

Ability,  245,  327. 

Anger,  51,  494, 


Characteristics. 

Asperity,  282. 

Caution,  57. 

Charity,  61. 

Clemency.  (^Sce  Pardoning  Power). 

Control  over  Men,  127. 

Courage,  58,  119,  123,  144,  146, 
604. 

Dignity,  347. 

Despondency,  xxx. 

Fairness,  333. 

Fidelity,  586. 

Firmness,  583. 

Frugality,  587. 

Geniality,  59. 

Honesty,  445. 

Humor,  193,  432,  443,  574- 

Kindness,  iii,  242,  244,  341,  584. 

Knowledge  of  Men,  260. 

Mercifulness,  144,  188,  377. 

Modesty,  241,  444. 

Patience,  282,  336,  589. 

Sagacity,  577,  582. 

Simplicity,  576. 

Self-reliance,  209. 

Temperance,  78,  170,  198,  463. 

Tenderness,  296,  451,  486. 

In  General,  xxx..  Hi.,  6,  14,  15,  48, 
50,51,  57.  58>  59.61,  111,119. 
123,  144,  146,  167,  188,  193, 
220,  227,  241,  242,  244,  245, 
257,   260,  282,  298,  327,  333, 

336,  341.  347,  363.  369,  377, 
432,  443,  444,  445,  463,  493, 
494,   560,  576,  577,  582,  584, 
589,  604. 
Chase,  S.  P.,  Iii.,  298,  559,  580. 

"       "    "    Candidature     for    Presi- 
dency, 559. 
"       "    "    Appointed    Ch.    Justice, 
565,  581. 
Chicago  Clergymen,  125,  334,  527. 
Chouteau,  C.  P.,  5. 
Cisco,  J.  J.,  563. 
City  Point,  175,  178. 
Clay,  CM.,  Biography,  627. 
"      "    "      Portrait,  293. 
"      "    "      Reminiscences,  293. 
"      "    "      Nomination   for  Office, 
299. 
Clerk  in  Store,  6. 
Clifton  House  Proposition,  435. 
Clinton  Speech,  204,  206. 
Coffey,  T.  J.,  Biography,  623. 

"         "    "    Reminiscences,  233. 
Coffin,  C.  C,  Biography,  619. 
"         "    •'    Reminiscences,  161. 


INDEX. 


651 


Coles  County,  459. 
Colfax,  S.,  Biography,  630. 

"  "   Portrait,  331. 

"  "  Reminiscences,  331. 

Columbus  Speech,  446. 
Coming  of  Age,  460. 
Comparisons.     {See  Estimates.) 
Committee  of  Western  Men,  56. 
"  "  Public  Safety,  33. 

Conduct  of  the  War,  53. 
Confiscation  Act,  57. 
Conger,  H.  S.,  217. 
Congress,  Lincoln  in,  17,  217. 
Congressional  Library,  20. 
CONNERS,  J. ,  Biography,  644. 

"         "     Reminiscences,  559. 
Convention  of  i860,  161,  165. 
Conversation,  Powers  of,  588. 

"  with  Stevens,  Campbell 

and  Hunter,  80. 
"  "     Butler,  140. 

Cooper  Union  Speech,  247. 
Courtesy  to  Correspondents,  228. 
Counting  the  Electoral  Vote,  1861,  31. 
Croffut,  W.  H.,  xxix. 
Curtin,  Geo.,  xxv» 


D 


Dana,  C.  A.,  Biography,  632. 
"     Portrait,  363. 
"     Reminiscences,  363. 
"     Visit  to  Alexandria,  370. 


Dates 


1830,  5- 
1S31,  119. 

1834,  6,  7. 

1835,  10. 

1836,  7. 

1838,  7,  9. 

1839,  5.  8. 

1840,  6,  7,  Q,  ID,  139. 

1843,  12. 

1844.  15- 

1846,  16. 

1847,  16,  17, 

1848,  18,  20,  219. 

1849,  19,  20. 

1850,  120. 

1853,  129. 

1854,  21,  129,  197. 

1855,  22,  120. 

1856,  24,  574. 

1858,  6,  24,  113,  131. 
1861.31,  47,  73,  85,  171. 

1862,  53,  57,  90,  123,  248,  271, 

1863,  42,  91,  242. 


Dates. 

1864,  51,  67,  III. 
"       1865,43. 
Davis,  David,  263,  468,  note  200,  455. 
"       Jefferson,  84. 
"  "  Capture  of,  97,  145. 

"  H.  W.,  494. 
Dayton,  W.  L.,  299. 
Debates.     {See  Speeches.) 

"        with  Douglas.   {See  Douglas.) 
"         at  Alton,  114. 
"         "  Ottawa,  6. 
Debt,  Lincoln  in,  465. 

"      Lincoln's  Father  in,  458. 
Declination,  Second  Term  to  Congress, 

20. 
Defeat  for  U.  S.  Senate,  22. 
Defense  of  U.  S.  Marshals,  23S. 
Delegate  to  Convention,  1856,  574. 
Delegation  from  California,  50. 
Democratic  Officers,  141. 
Democrats  in  the  Army,  141. 
Depew,  C.  M.,  Biography,  636. 
"         "     "      Portrait,  427. 
"         "     "      Reminiscences,  427. 
Deportation  of  Negroes.  (6(r  Negroes.) 
Desire  for  Renomination,  390. 
Dispatch  to  Adams,  l.xx.,  345. 

{See  Adams.) 
Dickey,  J.,  17,  222. 
Dismissed  Ofiicer  (The),  242. 
Dollar,  The  First  Earned,  279,  457. 
Douglas,  S.  A.,  Loyalty  of,  83. 

"  "     "     Opinion    of    Lincoln, 

575- 
"         '      "     Debates  with  Lincoln, 
6,  25,   26,  79,  113, 
199,  247,  297,  335, 
387,  405.  439,  440. 
Douglass,    Frederick,     Biography, 
620. 
Portrait,  185. 
"  "  Reminiscences, 

185. 
Draft,  71. 

"       Letter  Concerning,  394. 
Draper,  S.,  69. 
Drummond,  T.,  15. 
Duff,  Green's  Row,  17. 
Dufrees,  J.,  251. 
Dutch  Gap  Canal,  2. 
Dyce,  E.,  228. 


Early  Home,  5. 

"     Life,  5,  107,  457,  460,  468. 
"     Literature,  459. 


652 


INDEX. 


Earning  his  First  Money,  279,  457. 
Editorials  in  the  Independent,  248. 
Education,  458,  467. 
Edwards,  N.,  293. 
Elected  to  Legislature,  6,  7. 
Election  in  New  York,  1S64,  68. 
Emancipation    Proclamation,   61,    gi, 
124,  126,  134,  230,  303, 
420,  494,  519. 
"  Mention     of     Deity    in, 

91. 
"  Pen   Used  to   Sign,  230. 

Embree,  E.,  17,  222. 
England.     {See  Beecher.) 
"  (See  Adams.) 

Estimates   of,  xvii.,  xviii.,  xxii.,  Ixiv., 
47,  64,   77,   102,   X30,  231, 

233,  247,  307,  329,  331,  347, 
365,  418,424,427,437,470, 

472,    477,    483,    499.     573. 
574-  575- 
"      by  James  Longstreet,  77. 
Evarts,  W.  M..  257,  416. 
Everett,  E.,  228.  {See  also  Gettysburg.) 
Exercise  of  the  Appointing  Power,  378. 
Exposure  to  Danger,  Before  the  En- 
emy, 146. 
"  "         "        in   Washington, 

144. 


Fairness,  8. 

Fall  of  Richmond,  43. 

Fame  of  Dead  Men,  lOl. 

Farm  Hand,  460. 

Fenton,  R.  E.,  Biography,  615. 

"         "     "     Portrait,  67. 

"         "     "     Reminiscences,  67. 

"         «'     "     Serenade  to,  70. 
Fessenden,  W.  P.,  562,  565,  568. 
Fevre  River  Lead  Mines.  ( 5tY' Galena.) 
Ficklin,  O.  B.,  8,  15. 

Flanders,  ,  93. 

Flatboatman,  460,  461. 

Fogg,  G.  C.,  167. 

Forage  Frauds,  366. 

Fortress  Monroe,  Command  of,  145. 

Fredericksburg,  Battle  of,  xxv. 

Fremont,  Difficulty  of  Appointing,  55. 

Friends'    Deputation,    2S1.     {See   also 

Quakers.) 
Friendship  for  Grant,  322. 
Fry,  J.  B.,  Biography,  633. 
"     "     "    Portrait,  387. 
"     "     "    Reminiscences,  387. 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  xlvi. 


Galena,  7. 

Ganson,  J.,  432. 

Gayle,  J.,  217. 

General  and  Mules,  339. 

Gettysburg,  Journey  to,  403,  510. 

"  Serenade  at,  512. 

"  Address,    99,     132,     228, 

403,  415,  437,  514- 
Giddings,  J.  R.,  17,  222. 
Gift  from  the  Romans,  138. 
Gillespie,  J.,  15. 
Grant.  F.  D.,  i. 
Grant,  U.  S.,  Biography,  611. 

"        "     "     Portrait,  I. 

"        "     "     Reminiscences,  i. 

"        "     "     Lincoln's    Opinion   of, 

99,  175- 
Grant's  Opinion  of  Lincoln,  580. 
Gratitude  of  Nations,  loi. 
Greeley,  H.,  Lincoln's  Respect  for,  60. 
"     Speech  (1861),  60. 

"  "     Criticism  by,  87,  189. 

"         "     Peace  Negotiations,  435. 

"         "     Portrait  of  Lincoln,  593. 

"         "     Letters  to,  419,  523. 

"         "     Reply  to,  415. 
Grocery  Store  Keeper,  6. 
Guarding  Washington,  301. 
Gunn,  L.  A.,  570. 

H 

Habits  in  Washington,  469. 
Hackett,  "Baron,"  265. 
Hahn,  Governor,  93. 

"  "         Letter  to,  95. 

Hale,  J.  P.,  167. 
Hamlin,  H.,  484. 
Handwriting,  228. 
Hanks,  Thomas,  5,  460. 
Hardin,  J.  J.,  8,  15. 
Hendricks,  T.  A.,  355. 
Hicks,  Thomas,  Biography,  646. 

"  "         Portrait,  593. 

"  "  Reminiscences,  593. 

Holding  Court  in  1843,  12. 
Holloway  (Commissioner  of  Patents), 

52. 
Holt,  Judge,  241. 
Home  at  Springfield,  168. 
Hooker,  "  Pighting  Joe,"  277. 

"         Resignation,   128. 
Hostility  to  Lincoln  in  1862,  58. 
How  Lincoln  earned  his  first  Money, 

279.  457- 


INDEX. 


653 


Illinois  State  Convention,  i860,  208. 

"     in  1S49,  455. 
Impromptu  Speaker,  70. 
Inauguration,  iS6r,  49. 
Inaugural  Address,    1861,  50,  81,  82, 
131,  224,  225. 
"  "  1865,  96,  191. 

Ball,  1865,  191. 
Indianapolis  Speech,  4T4. 
Indiana  Delegation,  53. 
Ingersoll,  R.  G  ,  Biography,  628. 
"  "     "     Portrait,  307. 

"  <i     >•     Reminiscences, 

307- 
Intoxicated  Congressman,  452. 
Inventor  of  Torpedo,  237. 
Iverson,  A.,  219. 
Italians.     (See  Gift.) 

J 

Judd,  N.  B  ,  35.  167. 
Julian,  G.  W.,  Biography,  614. 
"         •'     •'      Reminiscences,  47. 


K 


Kansas  Nebraska  Bill,  203. 
Kasson,  J.  A.,  Biography,  633. 

"         "   "     Reminiscences,  377. 
Kelley,  W.  B.,   167. 
Kelley,  W.  D.,  Biography,  626. 

"         "     "     Reminiscences,  255. 
Kentucky,  320. 

Kentuckians,  Consultations  with,  318. 
Kerr,  Orpheus  C,  193. 


Labor  and  Capital,  129,  348. 
Lane,  J.,  301. 

"     H.  S.,  355- 
Laugh  of  Lincoln,    54. 
Law  Partnership,  10. 
Law  Office,  596. 
Lawyer,  7,  24,  197,  240,  294,  417,  413, 

432,  456,  460,  467,  587.   _ 
Lee's  Invasion  of  Pennsylvania,  490. 
Letter  to  Greeley,  419,  498,  523. 

"     "         "       1863,  448. 

"     "     Mrs.  Bixby,  ill. 

"     in  regard  to  the  Draft,  394. 

"     to  Washburne,    18,   22,   28,  29, 
30.  42. 

"     from  McClellan,  xxxv. 


Legislature,  Election  to,  6,  7. 

"  Lettres  de  Cachet,"  383. 

Lincoln  and  Douglas  Contrasted,  444. 

"         "  "  Debates.      {See 

Douglas.) 

"         Grant  and  Sherman,  175. 

"         Mrs.,    195,  602. 
Tad,  597. 
Lincoln's  Portrait,  591. 

"  Story  of  Own  Life,  455. 

Literary  Studies,  267,  599. 
Locke,  D.  R.,  Biography,  637. 

"         "    "     Portrait,  439. 

"         "    "     Reminiscences,  439. 
Logan,  S.  T.,  10,  11. 
Long  Nine  (The),  466. 
Loss  of  Inaugural  Address,  225. 
Luckett,  H.  i*L,  352. 


M 


Macon  County,  5. 
Mackenzie,  R.  S. ,  229. 
MacVeagh,  W.,  36S. 
McClellan,  G.   B.,  Appointment,  271, 
588. 

"  "     "    Chances  for  Presi- 

dency, XXX. 

"  "     "     Disobedience,  53. 

"  "     "     Letter  from    xxxv. 

"  "     "    Opinion    Concern- 

ing, xxxix.,  99. 
McClelland,  J.  A.,  168. 
McClernand,  J.  A.,  8. 
McClure,  A.,  368. 
McCULLOCH,  H.,  Biography,  635. 

"  "     Portrait,  405. 

"  "     Reminiscences,  405. 

McDonough,  J.,  264. 
McDougall,  J.  A.,   15. 
Mcllvaine,  A.  R.,  17,  222. 
McPherson,  E.,  274. 
Mail  Communications,  328. 
Maltby,  Captain,  567 
Markland,  a.  II.,  Biography,  629. 
"  "     "       Reminiscences, 

Sis- 
Marshals,  U.  S.,  Defense  of,  238. 
Marshall,  S.  D.,  8. 
Maryland.  Emancipation  in,  494. 
Mason  and  Slidell,  245. 
Meade,  Opinion  of,  99. 

"       Appointment  of,  128. 
Meade's  Order,  402. 
Meddlesome  Boys,  597. 
Member  of  Legislature,  460,  466. 
{^See  also  Legislature.) 


654 


INDEX. 


Members  of  Congress  from  Louisiana, 

93- 
Member  of  Congress,  i6,  460. 
Menard  County,  5. 
Message  to  Sherman,  325. 
Messenger  at  White  House,  364. 
Military  Commander,  218. 
Military  Coat  Tails,  220. 
Military  Life,  6,  463. 
Milroy's  Arrest,  490. 
Missouri  Compromise,  21,  406. 
Morgan,  Governor,  257. 
Morris,  W.  W.,  501,  509. 
Mules  and  Generals,  339. 


N 


Nasby,  Petroleum  V.     {^See  Locke.) 
Nasby  Letters,  447. 
Nebraska.     {See  Kansas.) 
Negroes,  Deportation  of,  61,  150,  151, 

153- 
"        Raising  troops,  145, 188,  332, 

495.  521. 
"         Suffrage,  95. 
"        Exchange  of  Soldiers,  185. 
Nelson,  W.,  320. 
New  Orleans,  142,  119. 
New  Salem,  5. 

News  of  the  Assassination,  384. 
Newspaper  Abuse,  58,  478,  589. 
Newspaper  Controversy,  436. 
"         Criticism,  241. 
"         Censorship  of,  226. 
"         Correspondents,  228. 
New  York  Election  in  1864,  68. 

"        "      Millionaires,  433. 
Nickname,  "  Old  Abe,"  16. 
Night  after  Election,  1S60,  479. 
Nomination    for   President,    i860,    81, 
163,  165,  167,  168,  255,  256,  410, 

479.  574.  591- 
Nomination  for  Senator,  25,  121. 

"  of    Butler   for   Vice-Presi- 

dent, 155. 
Nye,  J.  W.,  257. 


O 


Office  Seekers,  Importunities,  336. 

Office  Seeking,  481. 

"  Oh,  Why  Should  the  Spirit  of  Mortal 

Be  Proud,"  213,  268,  451. 
Opdyke,  G.,  363. 
Otto,  Appointment  of  Judge,  54. 


I 


Paducah,  Proclamation,  322. 

Panama  Canal,  153. 

Pardoning   Power,   Instances  of,   149, 

242,    305,  338,  340,  342,343.  351. 

449.  489.  502,  583,  585. 
Parentage,  405. 
Patience,  392,  336    589. 

(See also  Characteristics.) 
Peace,  Attempt  to  preserve,  86,  317. 

"     Commissioners,  249. 
Pennington,  W.,  32. 
Persistent  W^oman  (A),  391. 
Physical  Strength,  463. 
Piatt,  Donn,  Biography,  641. 

"  "       Reminiscences,  477. 

Pinkerton,  A.,  35. 
Place  in  History,  107,  137. 

{See  also  Estimates.) 
Politician,  134,  430,  585. 
Pollock,  J.,  17,  222. 
Popularity,  14,  16. 
PoORE,  B.  P.,  Biography,  622. 
"        "     "  Portrait,  217. 
"        "      "   Reminiscences,  217. 
Power  of  Statement,  194. 
Presidential  Campaign  of  1S60,  27. 
of  1864,  334. 
"  Elector,  460. 

President,  460. 

{See  also  Nomination.) 
Pressure  for  Office,  50. 
Private  Life,  64; 
Proclamation  of  Amnesty,  89. 
Proclamation    of    Emancipation. 

(See  Emancipation.) 
Proclamation,  Paducah,  322. 
Proposal    to    Purchase    Abolition    of 

Slavery,  98. 
Press.     (See  Newspapers.) 
Public  Safety,  Committee  of,  33. 
Purple,  N.  H.,  15. 


Quaker  Preacher,  The,  284. 

"       Deputation,  281. 
Quota  for  Draft,  397. 
{See also  Letters.) 

R 

Railsplitter,  208,  460,  566. 

(.S^t-  also  Early  Life  ) 
Reading  Law,  7.     {See  Lawyer. 
Rebellion  in  General,  422. 
Reconstruction,  421. 


INDEX. 


655 


Relative   Value    General    and    Mules, 

339- 
Releasing  a  Prisoner,  244. 

{See  also  Pardoning  Power.) 
Religion,  413,  590. 
Reminiscences. 

Alley,  J.  B.,  573- 

Andrews,  E.  W.,  501. 

Beecher,  H.  W.,  247. 

Boutwell,  G.  S.,  loi. 

Butler,  B.  F.,  139. 

Clay,  C.  M.,  293. 

Coffey,  T.  J.,  233. 

Coffin,  C.  C.,  161. 

Colfax,  S.,  331. 

Dana,  C.  A.,  363. 

Depew,  C.  M.,  427. 

Douglass,  F.,  185. 

Fenton,  R.  E.,  67. 

Fry,  J.  B.,  387. 

Grant,  F.  D.,  i. 
"       U.  S.,  I. 

Hicks,  Thomas,  593. 

Ingersoll,  R.  G.,  307. 

Julian,  G.  W.,  47. 

Kasson,  J.  A.,  377. 

Kelley,  W.  D.,  255. 

Locke,  D.  R. ,  439. 

Markland,  A.  H.,  315. 

McCulloch,  H.,  405. 

Piatt,  D.,  417. 

Poore,  B.  P.,  217. 

Swett  L.,  455. 

Usher,  J.  P.,  77. 

Voorhees,  D.  W.,  351. 

Washburne,  E.  B.,  5. 

Weldon,  L.,  197. 

Welling,  J.  C,  519. 

Whitman,  W.,  469. 
Renomination,     1864,  xxxviii.,     xliii., 
390. 
"  Desire  for,  560. 

Peported  Army  Losses,  287. 
Request  of  U.  S.  Senators,  235. 

"       of  a  Bride,  242. 
Rhode  Island,  Committee  from,  393. 
Rice.  A.  T.,  Ixix. 
Richardson,  W.  A.,  8. 
Richmond,  Entrance  into,  178,  180. 

Trip  to,  43. 
Rivalry  between  New  York  and  Penn- 
sylvania, 163. 
River  and  Harbor  Convention,  16. 
Robinson,  L.,  363. 
Romans.     {See  Gift.) 
Ross,  L.  W.,  8. 
Russell,  Dr.,  229. 


Sala,  G.  A.,  228. 
Sawyer,  "  Sausage,"  221. 
Schenck,  R.  E.,  478,  490,  494. 
Scheme  to  Colonize  Negroes,  61,  153. 

{See  also  Negroes.) 
Second  Term.     {See  Renomination). 
Self-Reliance.     {See  Characteristics.) 
Seniple,  J  ,  8. 
Senate,  Defeat  for,  238. 
Senator,  The  Swindling,  452. 

"         U.  S.,  Request  of,  235. 
Seward,  F.  W.,  35. 

W.  H.,  lii.,  29S,  579. 

"         "     "     Astor  House  Speech, 
85. 

"         "     "     Enmity  to  Clay,  304. 
Seymour  IL,  xxxi.,  xxxviii.,  429. 
Sherman,  Message  to,  325. 
Shields,  J.,  15. 
Ship  Island  Expedition,  142. 
Slavery,  xlvi.,  78,    116,    129,   317,  409, 

419,  445,  583. 
"  Slave  Hound  of  Illinois,"  xlvi. 
Slave  Dealer,  The,  583. 
Slidell.     {See  Mason.) 
Smith,  C.  B..  48,  167. 
"       G.,  286. 
"       L.,  16. 
"       R.,  8. 
Smithsonian  Institute,  Meeting  at,  60. 
Soldiers'  Politics,  516. 

"        Votes,  429. 
.Soule,  F.,  570. 
Speech.     {See  also  Address). 

"  Gettysburg.       {See      Gettys- 

burg.) 

"  In  Congress,  220. 

"  At  Clinton,  204,  206. 

"  "  Columbus,  446. 

"  "  Cooper  Union,  247. 

{See  also  Inaugural.) 

"  "  Freeport,  26. 

"  "   Indianapolis,  414. 

"  "  National  Hotel, 471. 

"  "   Springfield,  121,  203. 

Speed,  James,  294. 

"      Joshua,  241,  294. 
Spriggs,  Mrs.,  17,  222. 
Springfield,    Mass    Meeting  at,    i860, 

27- 

"  Home  at,  168,  603. 

"  Law  Office  at,  596. 

Squatter  Sovereignty,  115. 
Stanly,  E.,  532. 
Stanton,  H.  B.,  liii.,  243,  363. 


656 


INDEX. 


Stanton's,  H.  B.,  Influence   over   Lin- 

«  coin,  5,  6. 

"         "     "     Refusal  to  Obey,  loo, 
396. 

"         "     "     Tirade  against   Lin- 
coln, 223. 

"         "     "    Tenderness,  252. 

"         "     "    Obstinacy,  327. 
Stevens,  T.,  Criticisms  of,  339. 
Storekeeper,  462. 
Stories,  Derivation  of,  434. 
Story    Teller.       (^Sce    Characteristics \ 

also,  13,    54,    ig3,    207,   213,  2i8, 

235.  372,  416,  4>8,  427,  442,  485. 
Story  of  His  Own  Life,  455. 
Stowe,  H.  B.,  251. 
Strohm,  J.,  117,  222. 
Stuart,  J.  T.,  7,  8,  9. 
Stump  Speaking  in  1840,  lo. 
Suffrage,  Negro,  95. 

{See  also  Negroes.) 
Sumner,  223,  230. 
Surveyor,  460,  466. 
SwETT,  L.,  Biography,  638. 
"        "     Portrait,  455. 
"        "     Reminiscences,  455. 
Swindling  Senator,  The,  452. 
Sympathy,  148. 


Taylor's  Liaugural  Ball,  19. 
Temperance,  78,  170,  198,  463. 
Tenderness.     KSee  Characteristics.) 
Tastes. 

"      Liking  for  Theatre,  413. 

{See  also  Characteristics.) 
Threats  against  Lincoln,  276. 
Theory  of  the  Union,  94. 
Thompson,    J. ,  Contemplated    Arrest 

of,  375. 
Todd,D. ,  561. 

"       Mary,  293. 

"      Robert,  293. 
Tompkins,  P.  W.,  17,  222. 
Total  Abstainer,  Lincoln  a,  78. 
Trollope,  A..  22S. 
Trumbull,  L.,  8. 
Tuck,  A.,  167. 
Tyler,  D. ,  488. 


U 
Union  Spy,  The,  373. 
Union  Square  Meeting,  xxxiii. 
Union,  Theory  of,  94 
Usher,  J.  P.,  Biography,  616. 

"       "  "     Portrait,  77. 

"       "   "     Reminiscences,  77. 


Van  Buren  and  Harrison  Campaign,  6. 
Vandalia,  8. 

Visit  from  Englishmen,  286. 
VooRHEES,  D.  W.,  Biography,  631. 

"  "     "    Reminiscences,  351. 

W 
Wadsworth,  J.  S.,  363. 
War.     {Sec  Conduct.) 

"        {See  Peace.) 
Washburne,  E   B.,  Biography,  612. 
"  "    "      Portrait,  5. 

"  'i    ..     Reminiscences,  5. 

"  •<    "     ^j  Galena,  6. 

"  "    "     Letters  to,  18,  22, 

28,  29,  30,  42. 
Washington,  Journey  to,  in   1S61,   33, 
223. 
"  Arrival  at,  1861,  37. 

"  Mode  of  Life  in,  469. 

Watson,  P.  H.,  366. 
Webster,  D.,  222,  590. 
Weed,  T..  69. 
Weldon,  L.,  Biography,  621. 

"         "     Reminiscences,  197. 
Welling,  J.  C,  Biography,  643. 

"         "    "     Reminiscences,  519. 
Western  Men,  Deputation  of,  56. 
Whitman,  W.,  Biography,  640. 
"  "      Portrait,  469. 

"  "      Reminiscences,  469. 

Wilkes,  Admiral,  245. 
Williams,  A.,  15. 
Wilmot,  D.,  366. 
Winston,  Mrs.,  502,  508. 
Wounds  Received  by  Lincoln,  462. 
Wrestler,  219. 


Yates,  R.  W.,  600. 


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